In a New York Fashion Week filled with perfectly respectable if sometimes sleepy propositions, Peter Do shone. Their sharp tailoring and elongated silhouettes, a story he began with his first collection, offer a new way of dressing.
Do, an Old Céline alum, has been compared to Daniel Lee, who also worked with Phoebe Philo and landed at Bottega Veneta around the same time the Do line was launched. But Do has gone beyond this comparison, especially important now that Philo is preparing to launch her own line, and managed to make a name for himself as a designer to watch (and buy) in an era where it’s extremely difficult to compete with heavyweights. Europeans.
Why is it working? Women tend to design things that they would like to wear, while men often design with a vision of an idealized woman. That’s blurring as gender blurs, and Do is an example of this: you can see it so clearly in the clothes, which she wears in tests throughout her development. He also styles the collection himself, a risky proposition. But for Do, it’s another chance to express his point of view.
The right stylist can change the path of a designer. Joseph Altuzarra recently began working with Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who has given her runway a more family-oriented attitude. Altuzarra’s fall collection was reminiscent of the previous ones, with its coats with shearling collars and coin embellishments, but this was a relaxed version that reflected the designer’s liberated approach after his break with Kering.
LaQuan Smith, capitalizing on the pandemic-era success of his catsuits (the company’s sales are up 87 percent in 2020 from the year before, he said) brought Interview editor Mel Ottenberg to style her hip-baring micro skirts and high-cut crotches with a certain irreverence. It didn’t hurt that Julia Fox opened the show, the same day her breakup with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was made public.
A little bad taste can make a collection good. Wes Gordon pushed harder than expected in Carolina Herrera, leaning into the scandalous heyday of the ’80s, with bows galore and oversized sleeves. Streams of purple tulle that framed the silhouette of a black suit had more pizzazz than standard boned tops. But for those heading into gala season, the sculpted ball gowns, crafted with the support of two Herrera patternmakers who are retiring this year after two decades working in the company’s atelier, were the answer.
It’s an exciting time to be a ball gown designer. These days, Oscar de la Renta’s client is throwing house parties instead of attending benefits, so Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia are more focused on cocktail attire. The best thing about the short and sweet collection was the variety of colors, from soft teal to hot pink.
At Area, known for its children’s disco dresses, designer Piotrek Panszczyk fell in love with bulbous silhouettes dazzled with bright neon sequins, a sort of inflated version of what he’s done in the past. (His former design partner, Beckett Fogg, is now focused on business, he said.) While Area’s mirrored-wall, fluorescent-lit showroom just north of the fake watch dealers on Canal Street was fascinating, it would have been fun to see. on a catwalk
Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour also eschewed the traditional catwalk, instead recruiting a cast of friends, including Tommy Dorfman and Cory Kennedy (2007’s back, honey) to star in “The Collinas,” a parody of “The Hills.” ”, which debuted at the Angelica Theatre. It was laugh-out-loud fun at times, and served as a perfect way to showcase the collection, which has morphed dramatically over the years since its 2009 launch, of “hipster bags,” sold at then-influential retailers like Oak, in a flashback as a raver kid coveted by Gen-Z.
In general, the downtown scene, which felt so vital just a few years ago, was in need of a zhuzhing. So many new brands grew from the seeds planted by Eckhaus Latta and later by Vaquera, but none have had
We have been able to move the story forward. Instead, what you get is a vague version of the past. Much of it looks like what a suburban mom would have worn to her son’s dance recital circa 1992: drab colors, drab ideas, zero irony.
In Puppets and Puppets, designer Carly Mark’s floral velvet couch dresses and taffeta pilgrim-neck blouses lacked a distinctive point of view. Jack Miner and Lily Miesmer, who design the Interior label, also need to better articulate their purpose. Her fabrics are luxurious and her presentation at the Waverly Inn, where models sat at tables eating plates of fries and sawing off bloody steaks, was perfectly decadent, but it was hard to see a line through the clothes. Miner said the brand is becoming known for its “special” pieces, but what does the wide-bordered corduroy suit have to do with the crinkled metallic dress? Those are the kinds of questions you’ll need to start answering as you progress.
Maryam Nassir Zadeh, something of a den mother to many of these children, was influential long before she started her own line because of the inspired choices she makes when stocking her store. Today, she seems dedicated to transforming her own collection into something more than polished copies of already excellent vintage pieces. She still hasn’t made it, but there were some particularly good looks here, like gray sweatpants tucked into tight socks and worn with heels, and a few separates that were mildly reminiscent of late ’90s Marc Jacobs.
Zadeh knows where things are going, and while the dress may be the trend this season, pants, especially one with a lower rise, are gaining traction. He did a nice pair of pink lipstick. At Duncan, the sleek punk line designed by beauty industry exec Michelle Duncan, they were tomato red, with a giant fist. (Duncan recently recruited former Creatures of the Wind designer Chris Peters to collaborate on the line; it’s a good match.) Sergio Hudson, whose safari-inspired collection made up for what he lacked in originality with charisma, turned them into saturated pastels.
However, the big trend was not a silhouette or a shade of purple. Many designers used dead fabrics, from Joseph Altuzarra to Erin Beatty, who was delighted to add Italian silk to her upcycled Rentrayage line: it means you can make dozens of units at a time, something that was much more challenging when you were just repurposing old garments. Gabriela Hearst said that sourcing dead stock has become more complicated as more brands seek it out, but that “it’s a good problem; It means there is less waste.”
Hearst is living her life like she’s training for a marathon these days: shuttling back and forth from Paris, where she’s styling Chloé, to New York, where she’s raising three children and continuing to build her namesake brand. The ultimate luxury this season might have been a corduroy trench coat made from recycled cashmere and the little gemstone embedded at the bottom of the big signet rings. The thought and quality are there: Hearst’s challenge is to further differentiate his own line from Chloé’s, or risk diluting both.
At Coach, Stuart Vevers styled a kind of suburban teen wasteland, complete with dirty flannels, shearling, and lace dresses: one part “Singles,” one part “Reality Bites.” The looks were fun, especially the outerwear that reworked the silhouettes introduced by company legend Bonnie Cashin, but not particularly memorable. Tory Burch, who consistently offers color-rich collections that don’t always correlate from season to season, surprised her in a good way with her black pointed-toe flats overlaid with red dots, sequined scarves, and dropped shoulders. She could easily have gone for the cottage fashion, with blooming florals and doily collars, but instead she opted for a more sporty, artsy route. A pleasant surprise.
Michael Kors delivered the big gesture of the week on Tuesday, with a nightly show in Terminal 5, a truly awful place to see live music, and a cover performance by pop star Miguel who redeemed the space. The Kors collection was par for the course (wrapping cashmere, the requisite sequins, a fabulous wool tweed puffer), but it was the attendance of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was accompanying Anna Wintour, that which finally gave effect.
On Monday, Adams announced his plans to create 460 new fashion industry jobs, primarily in manufacturing, in New York City. And then on Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a $500,000 grant program to help independent designers host fashion shows through IMG — the details were fuzzy, but what the city needs in this moment is a little bit of hope.
However, does fashion really need New York Fashion Week? Over the last half decade, there has been a push in the US for brands to operate on their own terms instead of following the traditional formula. In many cases, this has been good for creativity and business.
Telfar Clemens, for example, has shown that he doesn’t need Fashion Week to sell his globally popular handbags: he and his business partner Babak Radboy were recent guests on NPR’s popular podcast “How I Built This,” a bookmark of success for American businessmen. And yet, there he was on Wednesday night, hosting a rapt crowd, including Supreme’s newly appointed creative director Tremaine Emory, at a theater on the edge of the South Street Seaport, where he shot footage of Telfar TV, its stylized version of public access television. , as well as an avalanche of looks conceived in the last two years. The stream was mesmerizing, but the clothing lived up to expectations. Clemens obviously designed this collection with the same intent with which he designs his blockbuster handbags: every pair of wide-leg jeans, every college tracksuit, every work chinos was demanding. These were the types of clothing one should be able to find at The Gap, where Clemens had a failed deal during the pandemic. Fortunately, he made them anyway. Too bad for Gap.
Source: www.businessoffashion.com