Bursting at the seams
New York
It was difficult not to come away from the collections here with a spring in one’s step. The runway shows that ended Friday were the most upbeat since before 9/11, and there was a sense that despite the trials of war, terrorism and a fluctuating stock market, American design is back, better than ever.
The clothes were alive with color and often puffed up with an air of optimism, as designers explored subtleties in volume and movement rather than indulging in faddish folly.
There was a return to the classic sportswear the fashion world has traditionally expected from this country, with the track pants, hoodies and surf looks that evoke Southern California style sprinkled throughout the collections. And a strong current of exuberant femininity was exemplified by Zac Posen’s sea nymph gowns and the Art Deco sequin chiffon flapper dresses at Proenza Schouler.
“Anything too sexy or serious just didn’t look right,” said Michael Fink, Saks Fifth Avenue’s senior fashion market director.
New York Fashion Week was also marked by a changing of the guard, with Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren keeping up but hardly serving as the pace-setters they once were. Calvin Klein, the third pillar of America’s design triumvirate over the last two decades, did not design at all but instead watched the debut of his successor, Francisco Costa. Carolina Herrera’s collection was livelier than ever, having been designed with the help of her youngest daughter, Patricia Lansing. And Oscar de la Renta took a runway bow with his entire design team, including several new faces. Even Marc Jacobs and Narciso Rodriguez seemed like elder statesmen compared to the crop of up-and-coming talent that shined here last week.
“It was amazing seeing Calvin standing against the wall watching,” said Natalie Masseret, the founder of Net-a-Porter, a Web site that sells designer clothing. “We really are witnessing a new generation. It’s definitely a shift.”
Reaching into the sports pages for inspiration with mixed results, Lauren stretched a cable knit tennis sweater into a clever dress and used the kind of chain metal found on a fencing mask for shoulder insets on a chic white Lycra sweater. The shrunken polo shirts that debuted in stores this spring, and were reportedly dreamed up by the designer’s twentysomething daughter Dylan, looked right. But piped linen cricket jackets boasting RL logos on the breast pockets and preppy, color-soaked separates layered on top of one another (lavender gabardine cuffed trousers worn with a fuchsia buttoned-down shirt and a kiwi green sweater) were too Buffy, too stuffy.
One of the few designers not high on Crayola brights, Karan worked in a sun-scorched palette of desert browns and terra cottas, turning out some wonderful blousy, paper-thin leather jackets with wide shoulders and ample sleeves cinched at the wrists. A hooded anorak in an opalescent bronze parachute silk caught wind as the model walked.
But asymmetrical silk jersey dresses and a nut-colored silk tweed suit landed with a thud, upstaged by the week’s more vibrant fare. Featherweight gowns woven from strips of silk chiffon that fluttered in the breeze evoked the ancient Greek sculpture “Winged Victory of Samothrace” but looked almost too fragile to wear anywhere but in a dream.
One couldn’t help but be romanced by Michael Kors’ self-titled “Crazy in Caprese” collection. Bathing suits in citrus orange and yellow with buckle details, leather mesh totes and cabana-stripe jersey dresses with cutouts at the waist transported show-goers to a seaside resort. An orange suede trench coat, a luxe geometric cobalt blue silk print caftan, sand-colored suede track pants and an azure blue beaded halter dress with the glint of sun-speckled ocean waves were just a few of many pieces that enthused even the most hardened fashionistas.
But the week really belonged to designers like Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler. After a successful debut last season, the recent Parsons School of Design grads, both 25, nabbed the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Perry Ellis Award for new talent. Last week, they signed a deal to design mega-Italian brand Max Mara and had one fabulous show.
Their collection was full of witty combinations -- an electric blue bathing suit worn with cream velvet jogging shorts and a linen blazer -- and inventive details, including a red seersucker buttoned-down with a black sequin collar and a hooded rain slicker re-imagined in yellow sequins. A silver chiffon V-neck dress with sequins sewn in a chevron pattern around the waist brought to mind the Chrysler building, and the delightful print on a white cotton coat resembled a handful of pixie sticks dropped on a canvas.
Matthew Williamson, the London designer who has been showing here for the last few seasons, has always been in love with color and whimsy. In one of his best collections, a peacock feather print was splashed across a chiffon caftan, white linen jackets were edged in neon brights and the pockets of white jeans were trimmed with tiny white pompoms.
Paisley and rhinestones lent a matador feel to black stretch pants and a close-fitting jacket, and there were even a few satin Western shirts in electric blue, pink and purple that Hollywood’s cowboy tailor Nudie would have loved. It all looked splendid with Williamson’s new shoe and handbag designs in metallic snakeskin.
IN stark contrast to most everyone else, Roland Mouret, a rising star in London who was showing in New York for the first time, had a more darkly sexy approach to the season. His signature draped gowns, which involve few seams and instead lots of twisting and pinning of fabric, can be quite beautiful in bright colors. But in black, they were a bit raunchy, especially with models’ breasts popping out all over the place and the scent of baby oil from their slicked-up bodies hanging in the air. Shiny dark green, black or white denim Bermuda shorts trimmed in zippers were paired with transparent black-and-white striped tank tops or zippered vests -- an attempt at punk rock that ended up looking more like jailbait.
Behnaz Sarafpour, who designs the Barneys New York house label as well as a line under her own name, seemed to be going in two directions. She, like Mouret, had aggressive pieces -- black pencil skirts with shiny patent panels and patent trench coats. But her best work brought memories of 1980s-era formal school dances with a GoGo’s soundtrack, paillette boleros and taffeta bubble skirts with bows on the backsides that spurred plenty of post-show prom dress chatter.
Two kids brimming with creativity, Zac Posen, the 21-year-old New Yorker with a bevy of Hollywood friends, and Esteban Cortazar, 18, of Miami, seem finally to be learning that a large part of designing great evening wear is knowing when to exercise restraint. Posen, who has overdone it in the past, offered a focused collection of dresses fit for an underwater Garden of Eden, including a shimmering pink ruched satin tank dress and a flippy-hemmed cocktail sheath in tonal lavender sequins. A plum satin mini-dress with a blouson back puffed up like a sail in the wind, and a red-hot gown floated to the ground in waves of chiffon. There were also plenty of his signature satin dance dresses in pretty pastels and just, for fun, a multitiered raffia ball skirt. (No smoking allowed.)
Cortazar had many hits too, including a pair of dresses in a multihued chiffon print that resembled Easter egg dye swirled in a glass of water. His crowning glory, though, was a blush Swarovski crystal mesh column gown as delicious as a tall drink of pink champagne. It was the perfect symbol for a week that was, above all else, about the joy of getting dressed.
