New York SS 2016: Dingleberries and Cream

For all the hurry up and wait, the collections here went by relatively quickly with little or no fanfare with the exception of a couple of spectacles (Givenchy and Marc Jacobs) and a whole lot of partay-ing. Sticking one's finger into the scrum would feel more chilly than warm to the touch. The in-ness of it all has done the opposite of what one might have expected.

One's attention now must turn to the wattage of the attendees and not so much the subject: fashion. There's lots and lots that passes as fashion but like the crowd of bright lights it's way more styled than actual style. Unless your thing is Kimye, Kendall and Ko. there's not much to hold onto.

Zac Posen Spring 2016

Still there were some surprises that were, well, surprising. The first of which is a feeling of the spirit of Ralph Rucci in the air. Well, the upper layers of air, at least. You could see traces of his oeuvre in collections from Zac Posen and Carolina Herrera. 

If you look at the details of Posen's cuts they are rife with RRucci's little worms connecting the suspended elements. It feels clumsy.

Carolina Herrera Spring 2016

At CH the picture is decidedly different. The clothes are really nice. I mean yummy yummy nice. They look good enough to eat! The colors, the shapes, the chic of it all. Maybe, because I have a very warm spot for RRucci's aesthetic, I'm swayed by it. But in this case not.

Carolina Herrera Spring 2016

The work at Carolina Herrera just gets better and more interesting every season and this season it made another leap in my eyes. They are the last remaining house that exists in NYC from the Golden Age of fashion. They are informed by Haute Couture and have always worked in a similar way. It's not about tech packs and samples being done in some foreign country there. They do things the old fashioned way. They make it. And they make it in all of it's blinding, complex, envelope pushing, luxurious, modern and romantic yumminess. In this instance, she paid homage to his genius. 

The Frick Collection was the setting for the show adding a quiet grandeur to the proceedings. It was first class from start to its assured finish. Wow, who knew you could see design at its most beautiful and forward reaching at New York fashion week? Especially, since the closing of Ralph Rucci. But that may have been just a momentary absence from the calender. My sense is that RRucci is not finished pushing the envelope. And if CH and Zac are any indication, his oeuvre is far from forgotten...

Givenchy Spring 2016

Givenchy's presentation was very interesting. A setting outside on the water, ubiquitous in its location but seriously beautiful in its offerings. That it would all be held up waiting for the Kimye juggernaut to be seated makes me wince, just slightly. But that's what you have to do nowadays. Take the bitter with the sweet. Prabal Gurung proposed some very nice clothes. Great dresses are at once unassuming in their complexity.

Altuzzara Spring 2016

Bibhu Mohapatra Spring 2016

There were also moments at Altuzzara and at Bibhu Mohapatra. Rosie Assoulin is another collection that intrigues. She makes a feast of her pants. They are a ball gown's version of a pant. Unlike a few season's past where her energy was more successfully channeled with graphic color plays and skirts constructed of straw, this outing felt decidedly tame. The same can't be said for Wu, Boss by Wu and a handful of other notable stars on the horizon. I won't list them at the risk of being vague. Those collections are vague and freighted with expectations not yet met...You can start with A for Adam and work your way thru to W, X, Y and so on.

Delpozo Spring 2016

 Delpozo was an event. Especially, with the clothes standing still. That is an imagination with all its engines firing. The shapes, colors, details, etc. were traffic stoppers. But in motion they look more like floats, barges and luxury liners. It's hard to imagine coexisting next to many of them but harder still to imagine trying to navigate your way from say point A to point B. Still, what a treat to have what looks like the work of a youthful couturier shown on these barren shores.

Delpozo Spring 2016

What can you say about Michael Kors other than he's got a death grip on the middling bag market. The clothes just go past. It's a formula that neither excites nor disappoints... Marc Jacobs is in the same vein. The grand gesture of a staggering production does little to explain what we see. It's just a ton of styling with some nice moments. The glittering paillette wrap skirts paired with bits above and over pieces below are great but in the larger scheme it's just show biz.......

Prabal Gurung Spring 2015: Misappropriation and missed opportunities...

It all started so well. Like his debut collection just a few short years back, Prabal Gurung showed more promise than most in the field of new, young talent. There was a purity of vision and purpose that was exciting to see. The opening to his spring 2015 collection had a similar feel. But from look 5 or 6 all the long, long way to 33-37 of 38 exits, there was nothing short of a drought. 

Too many details and looks reminds one of others work: Dior, LVuitton and bits and pieces of Ralph Rucci. The trailing ties and tails were all too familiar from RRucci's last spring collection. The odd-ball patchwork of prints and solids in successive looks with asymmetric ruffles and feathers tacked on for good measure did little to strengthen his message. They brought to mind the retread of LVuitton. Ghesquierre sent out  a group of dresses late in what was another endless show of banalities that also played the patchwork game to equally dull effect. Though Gurung has more drape in his arsenal the result was too similar. The question that dogged my mind was how many dresses can one dress be?

The references to tough chic moto cross trousers in silk complete with stripes across the leg, cargo zippers and all in multi-colors look forced and not particularly cool, though the accompanying blazers did have an interesting edge. That's the irony in all of this. COOL seems to be the very thing he's trying to express. Like in the beginning with a fellow contemporary Altuzzara, they both worked overtime to appear edgy and ahead of the curve. Altuzzara has moved on. Gurung is still attempting to draw water from a parched well. The small group of knits he showed over trousers was one bright spot an an area that could be further elaborated on.

Deconstruction is an interesting way to find the essence of an idea. Gurung appears to be committed to this idea but with mixed results. Not until look 33 appeared did it seem that he's found his groove. Still, the mix of shapes, eroticism and technique came together in an exciting way. Great gowns worth seeing on a great looking woman. Maybe less would go a long way towards more. His star shines bright nevertheless. It goes to show that clothes are not the most important currency of a designer.....

The Agony and the Irony... Rick Owens Spring2014 and other things.

Someone stopped me at the gym the other day and asked why I wasn't at the collections in Paris. It surprised me and then I felt flattered that he thought I should be there. Actually, I think I should be too. Maybe some day if I don't completely lose interest in fashion and where it's going.

I fully intend to be front and center when Ralph Rucci shows his first haute collection there next season.He's been off that particular map for the past several years and it's high time he was back playing with the big girls, showing the world what the couture can look like for today and tomorrow. That's an event I don't plan to miss.

Watching on line and reading what the "media elites" (there's a latent tea bagger in all of us) have to say is one way but not the best way. Up close and personal is preferable even when what's up close is less than exciting, interesting or even relevant. Still you have the total experience and can draw your own conclusions. It's ideal to be in the midst of the action feeling the excitement, soaking up the mood with the help of a set, if there is one, the music and the movement of the models in the clothes that hopefully move as well.

So much of New York was stiff, dull and irrelevant. Clothes that are made to play to only part of the front row, the editorial section, not the retail section which increasingly thinks of itself more and more in the club of the editors, are devoid of a message. The designers who've fallen prey to this malady are steadily killing a business that was at one time compelling and provocative causing people to think and dream.  There are legions in fact but to name them all would take up too much space. It's agonizing. And then the press takes it a step further by encouraging this mediocrity and punishing it at the same time. Talk about confusing...like circling the drain of a clogged sink.

Diversity or the lack, thereof, is on the minds of a few and surely there are some out there counting how many models of color are walking the most influential shows like a pea counter with a clicker at the gate. Rick Owens added to that total with a show that almost exploited the situation. With a group of four separate "stepping" sororities from here, he staged a show that was almost all black with not a model in sight, choreographed and performed by real women with an accent on "real". Strong, muscular, aggressive, scowling, full figured young black and white women "stepping" like an army of warriors marched onto the runway invading and storming the gates of the complacent world of the international fashion cognoscenti. I could just imagine them leaning back in their chairs, all clenched jaws and tight smiles looking at each other silently asking what the hell is going on? Then being swept up in the energy and otherness of it all with phone cams flashing like kids at the zoo.

Strangely, Rick Owens' clothes were pretty fantastic looking on these women. Great sportswear shapes on top and bottom with the line and technique normally associated with more haute fare. The drape of tunics over shorts, the cutest short jumpsuit in leathers, suede and cloth looked like something everybody would look great in... male or female. Whether clean lined planes or draped, wrapped and twisted the clothes have a beauty and "realness" that is missing most everywhere else. What's more, I couldn't help but think that if the clothes looked this good on these girls imagine how good they'll look on figures with fewer curves.

My first impression (pics/review in the Times) was not positive. The review was just short of patronizing. Then I went to YouTube and watched the video. It was rough, hard, harsh, strangely beautiful and exciting. Kind of like what
fashion should be. Did Owens take advantage of the diversity issue by tossing a bomb in the marketplace? Perhaps it was an Owens/Adidas ploy to play the race card considering his ever growing sneaker empire, or just a clever move by a talented iconoclast? Whatever it was, it made a huge statement. It was irony at its most effective. It's the stories behind the screen that can't be shared (discretion) that explain the why and the how. In the end it's the presentation that counts most. When you get something like this you forget how agonizing the journey can be. The sun peeks out and you feel good inside.

Alexander Wang Spring 2014: Jet Lag

Alexander Wang has been on a roll as of late. Not only has he lifted his collection to the level that it has taken over the conversation that has been strictly about Proenza Schouler, Altuzzara and Prabal Gurung. There is a singular message there that is at once original, youthful and knowing. His clothes are what women young and not so young actually wear. They spend the money and go out in it. I've even lingered at the racks in Scoop and thought that this looks good and so does that only to discover it was his work I was considering.

Then Balenciaga came along and I thought that there was no way he could add anything of substance to that chit chat. And then he did. I never felt it for Nicolas and shed not one tear when he left. But Alexander's Balenciaga has something I never expected. He's begun to absorb the language of the master and to filter it through his ripe imagination. His Balenciaga is sexy with just enough archness to make you stop and look, even think. He makes me excited to see what's coming next.

This season, back in NYC there was an absence of energy. It felt as though he left his mojo in the hotel in Paris. There was little cleverness in evidence beyond a handful of mischievous denim jackets and skirts at the very end of the collection. Exactly 32 exits into the show, the first truly interesting look appeared. It was followed by some great perforated and woven leather pieces. Still it was too little too late. The fetish pleated skirts with stiff tops that opened the show were rote naughtiness.

Lackluster. This is what I fear for all the burgeoning talent coming up; too much will be asked of them too soon. They may be willing, but ready and able is another thing altogether.