The dawn of ‘demi-couture’
Fashion can’t seem to catch a break. Last season, the world was readying for war; the season before, the market was attempting to recover from Sept. 11. And things weren’t much better as the fall shows opened over the weekend. Despite all the ink spilled over the supposed “luxury turnaround,” Women’s Wear Daily, the industry bible, ran a front-page story about “fashion’s bipolar blues.” Depressed dollar, depressed designers ... you get the picture.
Deciding to show is the easy part. These days, new designers become famous and forgotten at about the same rate as reality TV stars, unable to compete and maintain a foothold in a shrinking market. (Remember Miguel Adrover?) But still they keep coming -- a tech-mogul’s wife, a former circus performer and, indeed, a former reality show star are all on the schedule this week.
Derek Lam is one of the most promising talents, perhaps because he is not really new, having worked for Michael Kors for 12 years before launching his own label last fall. “When I went to Parsons [School of Design], I wanted to be the next Calvin or Donna, but that probably won’t happen ever again,” he said backstage before his show, noting that the dominance of Gap, department store brands and even Wal-Mart has left room only for small niche labels. A designer will probably never emerge on the scale of Donna Karan or Calvin Klein, who has already retired and handed over his name -- a business model at work industry-wide at Gucci, Emilio Pucci and Bill Blass, to name a few.
In his first season, Lam did not sell to a single store. But last spring, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York placed orders and Vogue magazine came calling. “My niche is Old World but with a modern sensibility,” he said. “I’m looking back to the generation before Calvin and Donna and Ralph, to James Galanos and Bill Blass and Geoffrey Beene, American designers who used the ways of old-world couture.”
He may have hit on something. British Vogue has labeled it “demi-couture,” a new fashion movement. The richly detailed look, characterized by the use of beading, buttons and pleats, brings the spirit of couture to a new generation without the $25,000 price tags. Labels that fit the demi-couture concept include Viktor & Rolf, Proenza Schouler and Rochas. For Lam, the idea is to emphasize craftsmanship over gimmicks, and a lifelong connection with the customer over seasonal trends.
On the runway, that translated into a silk coat in a white “seraglio tile” print, with hand-beading around the cuffs and waist; a gold lace skirt that brought to mind an old gilded picture frame; a smoky gray velvet cocktail dress with satin piping at the hem and at waist; and a black wool cavalry jacket with extra details, such as a line of buttons barely visible inside the kickpleat. One of his most extraordinary pieces was a crystal and metal mesh tunic dress, used as a canvas for a bronze peacock design. Lam was inspired by Old Vienna as a cultural crossroads. He had a story in his mind, he said, of the city as seen “by a Sarah Lawrence graduate who’s taken a little too much art history.”
Julie Gilhart, the fashion director of Barneys, is confident that Lam has a future beyond the headline-grabbing months that make some designers burn out quickly. “He’s been around long enough. He’s seen it,” she said. “He’s a little more low-key than some of the others. He’s not out and about every night.”
A wholly different route for a new designer is to design under someone else’s name. Patrick Robinson is the buzzed-about talent at the helm of Perry Ellis, where Marc Jacobs once worked. Robinson is backed by license-holder Public Clothing, so money is not an issue for him as it is for Lam, who still answers his own office phone, takes the subway and was lucky to have his show paid for in part by Vogue. But answering to backers has its own set of issues.
Instead of a runway show, Robinson hosted a still-life presentation, walking editors around models posed in his girlie creations: a pink 1950s circle skirt topped with a charming gray polo sweater with pearl buttons; a blue houndstooth pencil skirt paired with a sleek, fitted leather bomber jacket, pinned with a cluster of rhinestone brooches; a pleated skirt in a fresh, pale yellow print based on a vintage Perry Ellis scarf, a shell-colored shrug edged in sequins and, just for fun, a fake fur muff reminiscent of something out of the film “Far From Heaven.”
The nostalgic theme began this spring with Prada’s souvenir-print circle skirts, and has even dribbled down to Banana Republic’s perky pink lady coats, now in store windows. It’s a fine line of design; women always like to look pretty, even though they have made considerable social and political strides since women’s colleges became a choice.
Watching from a riser, his backers discussed him as if he were a racehorse. “Look at him do the meet-and-greet.” ... “Much better than last time.” Below, Robinson ran laps -- exchanging double-cheek kisses with Bazaar editor in chief Glenda Bailey, giving TV interviews and trotting out fashion buzz-phrases like “mixing it up.”
Like Lam, Robinson is no stranger to the trials of the business. He had his own label, which he closed in 2002 for financial reasons. His first fashion gig was at 14, designing surfer tees for kids in his class at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton. “You had to pay upfront and they were one-size-fits-all,” he said. “Those were the days.”
Have clothes, will travel. That should be the motto of Sass & Bide, a label with fans in the “Sex and the City” bunch. Designers Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton (Sass and Bide are their nicknames for each other) started at Australian Fashion Week in 2001 and moved to London Fashion Week last year. The Aussies came to New York this season hoping to increase their U.S. sales, and as soon as they hopped off the plane they headed straight for the flea markets, as they do in every city they visit, to pick up the Indian, Moroccan and Thai headdresses, fur legwarmers, riding crops, coin anklets and other curiosities they used in their show, which was as much about styling as anything else. Sexy ruched jersey gladiator tunics were doused in sequins, and brown tweed or black velvet equestrian jackets and mini-dresses were detailed with brown corduroy for a gladiator princess, naughty nanny look.
The designers themselves were as interesting to look at as the models, with Clarke in a Union Jack T-shirt and sequin vest, and Middleton in a skimpy black macrame top and a leopard print skirt with a handkerchief hem. “It’s a bit of a 1940s, ladylike look, but it’s all sexed up,” Clarke said backstage before the show, where a hair stylist was busy combing a model’s hair up and over a small plastic winged motorcycle.
Amid all the hair raising, there wasn’t a single champagne flute, much less any rowdy behavior -- a far cry from the backstage scenes in fashion days of yore. A raven-haired young thing having her face powdered was passing the time reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” and nibbling on chocolate chip cookies. Maybe the party is over after all.
