In the spirit of punk
When a model at the first ever show of the Karl Lagerfeld labels came out on the runway Friday night wearing a scarf that looked as if it had been attacked by machine-gun fire, it was a shot heard round the fashion world. A revolution was afoot in New York, as darkness fell on the runways and designers abandoned the girlishness of the last few years for a more aggressive stance.
By the end of Fashion Week, several trends had crystallized -- layers upon layers, dresses over leggings, sweaters over sweaters; a sober palette; an elongated silhouette characterized by skinny pants or leggings and jackets with elaborate sleeves.
But the bigger news was the new mood carried over from last season’s Junya Watanabe show in Paris and Yohji Yamamoto’s the season before that.
The grunge-glam work wear at Marc Jacobs, the black lipstick and Wednesday Addams dresses at Alice Roi, the military coats and bandaged heads at Alexandre Herchcovitch, the biker jackets at Proenza Schouler and the razor-blade necklaces at Luella Bartley had a subversive spirit recalling the London punk movement of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
A return to punk fashion has been bubbling under for some time -- in the sharp crystal studding in Yamamoto’s fall 2005 collection, the spiky mohawk hairstyles at Watanabe, and on the streets in the growing popularity of Sex Pistols and Misfits tees.
Lagerfeld broke it down for the masses at his dark-hued show, mixing pieces on the runway from his Karl Lagerfeld contemporary line ($95 for a T-shirt to $995 for coats) with his more expensive Lagerfeld Collection (about $200 to $2,500). The collection was an angry march, with lots of layering -- a boxy black wool side-button jacket over a shawl-collar T-shirt and twisted-seam skirt, a holey scarf over a sheer wool henley shirt and wide-leg pants. Add to that stringy fur cuffs and swashbuckling suede boots and Lagerfeld’s girls had some serious attitude.
Black trench coats were slouchy and cool, and cashmere sweaters came pilled, as if they were already world-weary. A cavalry-style coat dress was well-suited to an urban warrior, as were abstracted black and brown camouflage pants. Horsehair-fringe cardigan coats were fierce, while an elongated sleeveless button-front jacket, worn over a long flared skirt, was in line with this season’s new silhouette. And for the price, a black silk Empire dress with a draped and gathered collar and a pieced-together boiled-wool sweater dress with a bubble hem and bell sleeves were heavy on design.
Just hours before the show, Lagerfeld was high atop the New York skyline at his 20,000-square-foot studio in Chelsea. With just 500 seats available, the show was the week’s hottest ticket. Expectations were high, despite reports that Lagerfeld hadn’t designed this landmark collection at all.
Black-clad staffers tiptoed around, not one dressed in the new collection. (Lagerfeld considers it bad luck.) Wearing a Dior Homme jacket, Agatha jeans bought at Maxfield in L.A. and Causse fingerless leather gloves, Lagerfeld vigorously defended himself, explaining how he sketched everything and conducted fittings using an online hook-up from Paris.
“Just because you’re not there does not mean you are not involved,” he said. “That’s not how things work today.” Indeed, Lagerfeld was early to adopt new technology. An iPod fanatic (he owns 100 of them, programmed with music in different languages), his show was the first ever available for download on iTunes.
It’s unclear whether the collection will silence critics. (When Lagerfeld took a bow wearing his signature ram-rod straight black blazer and jeans with Ugg boots and an overgrown rhinestone American flag belt buckle, you didn’t know whether to applaud or to laugh like you would at your crazy uncle.) Now that he designs Fendi in Milan, Chanel and Chanel Couture in Paris and the two new labels in New York, it’s doubtful he is intimately involved with every detail. And there were a few touches (the shaggy fur cuffs, for example) that read like a designer out of touch with what the kids are really wearing. But as a whole, the collection had the kind of urban sophistication of Helmut Lang, a quality that has been sorely missing from the contemporary market.
A similar sexiness and aggression were evident in Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s Proenza Schouler collection. Color blocking was a constant on a straight-and-narrow black felt pencil skirt and silk chiffon button-down, and on shift dresses with Cy Twombly scribble, all worn with opaque tights and ankle boots. The volume was turned up slightly on fabulous biker-styled A-line coats in brown leather or black felt, offset by skinny leggings or skirts with flared hems.
Zippers were the ornamentation of choice on a copper lace shell, worn with skinny magenta velvet pants, and on a moss green lace skirt, topped with a simple black chiffon blouse. There was even a pair of zippered leather pants.
For evening, draped jersey gowns came in jewel tones, cinched with wide hook-and-eye belts, and slim dresses were coated with sharp-looking stones -- pretty to look at, if not to sit in.
With all the 1980s references this season, one had to wonder whether Donna Karan would resurrect some of her iconic ideas from that era. And she did, beginning with the first look -- a bodysuit, embroidered with mirrors (the nice girl’s version of the metal stud), worn under a molded charcoal felt coat. The bodysuit continued to appear throughout.
Executed in an itchy-looking wool with stretch tulle inserts, it was paired with a felt tulip skirt and cinched with a mirrored cummerbund the size of a prizefighter’s belt.
With sleek ponytails, blank faces and orangey red lipstick, Karan’s models were right out of Robert Palmer’s mid-’80s “Addicted to Love” video. At any moment, they looked as if they’d stab you in the back -- in the bedroom and the boardroom. And there was plenty here for workplace warriors: a jacket in an oversize ‘80s black-and-red houndstooth paired with a molded black felt skirt, and a black stretch crepe suit cut severely straight. Meanwhile, big shaggy knit black cashmere turtlenecks and shearling jackets unleashed the sexy beast within. For evening, stretch crepe gowns with sheer illusion backs left something to the imagination.
In his seventh season at Calvin Klein, Francisco Costa finally made the label his own, contrasting the spare modernity of the brand’s founder with his own overt ornamentation. But in an effort to prove his artistic prowess, he forgot that his customer is a woman, not a mannequin, and that multiple pleats and chiffon layers, bra tops, and toggle and chopstick closures are too fussy for real life.
His best pieces weren’t for real life, but for the red carpet, clearly made with Lindsay Lohan, not mere mortals, in mind. Roomy black slip dresses, worn over chiffon bras, were embroidered with jet beads in chevron patterns. Some came in siren red and were pinched in at the hem, worn with toggle T-strap shoes. But a fashion house cannot survive on the red carpet alone. Klein knew that. Now Costa has to figure it out.
There were too many pieces, like a chestnut brown chiffon herringbone skirt with looped box pleats, and a gray cashmere cable-knit sweater with chiffon insets and embroidered lizards, that would make it near impossible for its wearer to carry on a conversation about anything else.
The flock of black crows over the runway at Yamamoto’s Y-3 show lent an uneasy sense of foreboding about the future, in contrast to the optimism at Jacobs’ sensational show earlier in the week, where the orphans of a lost utopia were clothed in the hope of rebuilding.
Here too there was an elaborate set, with a gnarled tree, broken windows and a crunchy black substance on the runway that made it seem like walking on broken glass. There were some chic, streetwise pieces -- black kilts and culottes, striped angora shawls and leather booties, cardigans and jeans emblazoned with the outlines of handguns and daggers.
But the dramatic scenery couldn’t disguise the fact that this is an active-wear line licensed by Adidas. And in this harsh world, it’s going to take a lot more than Y-3 logos and white racing stripes to survive.
