Happy Days Are Almost Here Again
Whether fashion trends are about seduction, satire, drama or adventure, they’re always fascinating for the way they reflect a kind of group role playing. One season we’re wealthy bohemians borrowing peasant garb, and the next we’re aggressive punk gothics in leather. As the spring 2003 previews finished here Monday, women’s wear designers turned to traditional notions of femininity and cast them in a sunny light.
Fashion is happy again. It just won’t look that way until February or March, when the lively new spring clothes begin to replace the bleak and black autumn styles that reflected our lingering despair. As many designers looked ahead to spring, they imagined sadness giving way to optimism, aggression fading into sweetness and innocence trading places with raunch. Instead of scoffing at clothes that once represented unsophisticated taste--prints, lively colors and even slips under sheer fabrics--designers have embraced them as the new signature of cool. By the time the tulips bloom, women will have a chance to revel in ruffles, look pretty in pink and enjoy being a girl--except for the part about suffering in high-heeled sandals.
The shift has resulted in some extraordinary collections that signal a yearning for simpler times--and more realistic clothes. That’s not to say that these new silky dresses and casual jackets aren’t without complications and contradictions. Some of the most beautiful clothing to come out of Seventh Avenue strolled through Donna Karan’s showroom Friday. Though her program notes were titled “To Suit a Woman,” Karan departed from the promise of a professional wardrobe and focused mainly on sultry, satiny 1930s chanteuse gowns, Adrian’s 1940s Hollywood glamour and 1950s happy hostesses.
Karan’s timeless interpretations brilliantly captured the essence of those eras while avoiding the costumey trappings. Even with the well-padded shoulders, appliqued swirls and matching-fabric platform shoes, Karan created sophisticated wrap coats and ruffled jackets that would be credible work wear. For special occasions, she offered amusing polka-dot or cherry-shaped sequins and lively Monet florals or Schiaparelli-esque prints featuring symbols of celebration or music. “I wanted to celebrate America, celebrate the glamour of America,” Karan said after the show.
Miguel Adrover staged a remarkable comeback collection that was glamorous but also full of empathy, anger and hope. In 54 masterfully tailored ensembles, the Spanish-born designer, who faded from view after his stunning debut two years ago, re-created the events and the emotions of the first year post-Sept. 11. This “Citizen of the World” collection incorporated details that have become familiar scenery--guard uniforms, the tall-building skylines of major cities and even the dark-and-light vertical stripes that evoked the World Trade Center. He represented the many supporting players in the crisis--with a priest’s collar; a United Nations diplomat’s suit; a Hasidic Jew’s prayer shawl; an Afghan’s caftan; and the New York homeboy’s (and rescue worker’s) do-rag, 122 of which he wove into a floor-length gown. Adrover created an eerily beautiful symbol of the new reality with an ink-black skirt and jacket quilted in white stitches to resemble a large fingerprint.
Inspiring clothes don’t have to be beautiful to be memorable, but Calvin Klein showed that not all pretty clothes make a strong impression. As he moved closer to becoming a bland Giorgio Armani, Klein’s restrained palette of pale gray, cream, white or black luxury fabrics belonged neither to day nor night. The darts and pintucks on delicate silks were lovely, but their subdued sexuality rendered them anonymous. He emphasized simple two-piece, ultra-lightweight ensembles that were shown on an overwhelming majority of flat-chested blonds. He must have been trying to impress his guest, Gwyneth Paltrow.
Whereas Klein’s tailoring nearly neutralized sexuality (odd for the man who sells perfume with crotch shots), Narciso Rodriguez used graphic blocks of color and simple-but-tailored shapes to emphasize a woman’s curves. A loose-fitting satin bra top worn over a tank dress was modest, but as it moved slightly across the bust, alluring. Rodriguez showed a sure hand and, barring any financial disaster, the potential for longevity.
Refined sensuality is flattering to women of any age, a lesson veteran Geoffrey Beene learned long ago. Like Rodriguez, Beene worked with the same kimono silhouettes and realigned proportions to direct the eye to unexpected erogenous zones. While the rest of Seventh Avenue is focused on waists and bare shoulders, Beene made a dignified black dress sizzle with a few inches of sheer fabric stripped along the underside of the bosom just the thing to make a Park Avenue husband forgive a shopping spree.
Though New York designers turned out many sexy clothes this season--short shorts, halter dresses, hip-hugger pants and curve-hugging skirts--the idea of glamour is often a static one, stuck in Hollywood’s so-called Golden Era. In a pinch, many designers use movie imagery or stage costume dramas to give life to a collection. Michael Kors, one of the most relentlessly upbeat personalities in fashion, aimed for an update to Hollywood glamour and missed. A combined men’s and women’s show was dedicated to “the laid-back, sporty glamour of Evans and MacGraw.” The skinny ‘70s polo shirts recalled the era well, but the collection looked more like Polo Ralph Lauren than vintage Polo Lounge.
Lauren, meanwhile, proved that he is a man of sufficient means and imagination to stage his own version of “Age of Innocence.” He transformed the garden of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side with an extraordinary tent lined with silk curtains, lighted with large crystal chandeliers and scented by multiple floral arrangements that were taller than the designer. Guests such as Elizabeth Hurley reclined on feather pillows to watch a procession of modernized Edwardian finery--high-collared shirts, moire jackets, bustle-back jackets and a few shredded blue jeans to unsweeten the pot. (Lauren is at his best when he’s interpreting a grand historical era.) As he kissed his way down the front row, the fashion billionaire wore the casual male version of his collection: distressed blue jeans, expensive watch, white bib-front tuxedo shirt and black velvet evening slippers with gold insignia. Because of his own reinvention, Lauren lives more like a movie star than most movie stars.
Los Angeles designer Rick Owens lives the authentic, gritty Hollywood life in his Las Palmas studio. His cool friends may be hot producers or transvestites; his style may be rough-edged and raw, delicate and sensual, or all at once--kind of like the moment backstage when he introduced his gentle mother, Connie, to tough international style icon, French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld.
In his third New York show, but the first since an Italian partner grew his business tenfold, Owens stayed true to his soft-goth vision. Gauzy skirts and extra long pants flowed under washed and shrunken leather jackets. His aesthetic mixes men’s wear with women’s with androgyny. A woman model wore a more finely shredded version of his own uniform-overdyed, cutoff Army pants and a T-shirt. While a Neiman Marcus executive was mystified by his appeal, calling his first show “passe,” ’60s model and show guest Veruschka got it instantly. “I loved the combination of different fabrics and the way he worked them to look used,” said Veruschka, who was wearing floral satin pajama pants, a ripped apron of metallic gold crochet, an industrial belt, split-toe Nikes, and a hooded, Army green zip cardigan that she said soldiers wear as mosquito netting.
To really understand Hollywood, it helps to be from Los Angeles. South Pasadena resident Richard Tyler, who also has a home and business in Greenwich Village, can reliably gauge the pulse on both coasts. He found himself drawn to lush colors of coral, tangerine, lemon and lavender for the second season of his secondary line, tyler. Why? “It was Sept. 11,” he said before his Saturday show. “I didn’t want anything to feel down. I want to feel up. We’ve all got to go on with our lives. In our funny little way, fashion designers can help.”
His timing couldn’t be better. Fashion this season features Tyler’s longtime signatures--delicate fabrics, precise pintucks, pleats and embroidery. Along with co-designer Erica Davies, Tyler gave a relaxed attitude to polo shirts rimmed with ruffles, intricately cut out suede jacket sleeves, and unfussy crinkled silk wide-leg pants, embroidered baseball jackets and an easy, all-white pantsuit. His line is the West Coast’s answer to Marc by Marc Jacobs, another diffusion line that happens to be a diffuse image of hip Salvation Army shoppers.
It helps to be from L.A. to understand Kansas City, Mo., native Jeremy Scott, who moved near Silver Lake from Paris early this year. With Bob Mackie as one of his idols and inspirations, Scott created the faux label Jeremy Scott Beverly Hills and a complementary wardrobe. Try to picture the clothes of a sexy Greek goddess/Jane Jetson who travels by blimp (which were interpreted as tote bags). A man of many motifs, Scott added in seashells and feathers for evening wear, and chiffon and suede for the beach.
It was playful, and at times silly, but ultimately the kind of great fun that reminds us of fashion’s ability to take us out of ourselves and into just about any identity imaginable.
