It’s only fashion, after all
Under the tents at Bryant Park, the fashion world seems to be going through the motions. Editors’ outfits are low-key, cocktail swilling is at a minimum -- they couldn’t even give away the Courvoisier -- and the celebrity hoopla is strangely subdued. In past seasons, the Marc Jacobs front row was jumping with paparazzi bait, but on Monday night, Maggie Gyllenhaal was the best they got.
“I think it has to do with the cold weather,” said Phillip Bloch, a celebrity stylist sitting in the front row of BCBG without a celebrity at his side. “But also the climate of what’s going on in the world.”
Even Neiman Marcus fashion director Joan Kaner has a touch of melancholy.
“I think we all have the attitude that you just kind of have to keep going,” she said.
With the specter of war, the recent shuttle disaster and a skittish economy, it’s tempting while sitting through hours of these shows to search for deeper meaning amid the pleats and hems. Could the gaucho be some sort of political statement? Is the resurgence of the micro-mini a silent war protest?
But it’s just fashion after all, a business, and designers probably are wise not to push their relevancy in a time when most people have more important things on their radar.
At his show Monday, Marc Jacobs drew inspiration from fashion visionaries Andre Courreges, who in his time played with the idea of women’s equality by experimenting with angular Space Age looks, and Rudi Gernreich, who liberated the breasts with the topless bathing suit.
But this time around, electric orange and turquoise micro-miniskirts and jumpers with geometric-shaped insets, worn with opaque colored tights and low-heeled pumps, were not meant to be instruments of social change.
“Fashion is not a cure for anything,” Jacobs said after the show, lighting one Marlboro after another. “It’s a whim.”
There were a few charming pea coats with Jacobs’ signature oversize buttons, but white minidresses adorned with exaggerated loops of big flat sequins probably are too “Laugh-In” for most tastes.
Still, Jacobs’ latest nostalgic riff struck the right note of whimsy. If only the future had turned out to be as simple as the cartoonish notions predicted in the 1960s.
Carolina Herrera took inspiration for her quietly elegant collection from Alfred Hitchcock’s cool, curvy blonds. A charcoal pinstripe pencil skirt, a Prussian blue satin trench coat, black fishnet stockings and open-toe pumps recalled Kim Novak in “Vertigo.”
There also were scene-stealing coats: one in tooled butterscotch leather and another in camel wool covered in a beaded checkerboard pattern.
For dangerous nights, feathers peeked out from under the hem of a black beaded-lace cocktail dress. A full, black organza skirt was nipped at the waist with a burgundy ribbon, and a pleated fuchsia halter top was paired with an unforgiving narrow black skirt.
“We’re going to need to have lots of dinners to discuss this collection,” Vogue editor at large Andre Leon Talley gushed after the show to Herrera, who is, after all, every inch the cool blond herself. Yes, but didn’t we just go through the femme fatale phase last fall?
Oscar de la Renta, too, is in search of the customer who has the cash and the social schedule for new party frocks each season. And his evening offerings, as usual, were brilliant: a turquoise sweater with jewels embroidered around the neck, worn over smart-looking black tuxedo pants; a coat in a rich gold brocade that only Oscar could do; a taffeta gown with a full skirt of ruffles cascading to the ground; and lighthearted, feather-flocked dresses that will surely make their way to Hollywood. For day though, brown suede gauchos, bland-looking cashmere capes and cropped sable vests seemed hardly worth opening even the fattest wallets for.
Diane von Furstenberg was shooting for Bond girls at her “License to Thrill” show, but she misfired. There wasn’t anything particularly 007-ish about a chevron-patterned jersey minidress or an evening jacket with fur cuffs worn with a long wool jersey mermaid skirt.
And though Von Furstenberg is famous for prints, her “Tiffany glass” and Wedgwood blue rose patterns were too ordinary. Let’s put it this way, it’s a bad sign when the shoes are the most eye-catching part of a collection, especially when they are not even yours. (Christian Louboutin did the honors.)
It’s looking like Von Furstenberg may be one of those designers who is better off in the spring.
In the show notes at BCBG, designer Max Azria said he was inspired by August Sander’s photographs of early 20th century laborers to create utilitarian pieces with a girlish innocence. Where Jacobs took the fashion-as-fantasy route, Azria went back to basics, with -- an emerging trend for fall -- canvas and pea coats or vests with brushed silver buttons at the waist and cuffs, plus cropped corduroy sailor pants worn with knee-high studded suede boots. Chunky rosewater- colored cashmere cardigans; cornflower blue, petal-print cotton voile apron tops and dresses worn with heavy tights and Mary Jane shoes recalled Nicole Kidman’s Bloomsbury bohemian look in “The Hours.” The overall effect was functional and feminine.
Though none of it was terribly original, there also was plenty to wear at DKNY. Donna Karan courted youth with a modern vision of urban prep that included a claret-colored car coat, sexy zipper-back, cropped jeans; a gray glen plaid miniskirt worn with a looped silver chain belt, knee-high stockings and kiltie pumps, and a raggedy lace skirt topped with a tux jacket.
British designer Luella Bartley, however, is stuck reliving the 1980s. As a high schooler back then, she -- like many of us -- probably felt cool listening to Echo and the Bunnymen and dressing in ill-fitting men’s blazers from thrift stores and loose Levi’s rolled up over white ankle socks and men’s wingtips. Her models’ eyebrows were even made up to have that boyish, pre-plucking look.
Please, Luella! Don’t make us relive that awkward stage. We’ve got more than enough to be depressed about already.
