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.......

Not my monkeys. Not my circus....

Please come to my party?

It was impossible to dodge all the news stories leading up to the party of the century, or at least the party of the month. Everywhere you looked there were stories about Anna Wintour and her visionary status. The queen of the zeitgeist. Or better yet, the createur of the zeitgeist. Considering, the shift from models as cover subjects to stars of the movies, reality TV and the music industry, and an occasional athlete (Serena Williams to fill the color quotient), has made her job really pretty easy. First off the gates are officially closed to all and sundry who do not meet the requirements of her stringent list. The ticket price which is nothing but a stab at democracy when in reality no invitations are "paid for" as Ms. Wintour instructs her sponsors (LVMH, etc) to pony up while she takes care of who comes with whom wearing what and where those someones will be seated. No longer is a designer on the rise welcome or even invited but only those who've ascended to her particular zip code in heaven....

It looks like a hell of a party. The decoration, food, entertainment (Rihanna singing, "Bitch better have my money") look grand compared to most "benefits" in town. The museum certainly is a huge draw with the costume institute exhibitions only getting better. The Alexander McQueen "Savage Beauty" exhibit set a new bar for the subsequent shows. This show, unlike Charles James which to my eye was a rambling mess of a show was well thought out and beautifully arranged. At the James show I trekked upstairs, downstairs, around the corner, all over the place and in the course of trying to find another part of the show, I found the front door and called it a day. This show is pretty fabulous in that it is beautifully integrated into several of the museum's galleries culminating down below in the original galleries for this show. The dark, dank basement.

My beef with this rite of spring is the sheer level of crass self regard, not to mention a noticeable lack of restraint on the part of all the women who came in nothing more than a spangle (partially) covered slip that couldn't be bothered with covering her nether regions. Between the utter scale/degree that "entertainers"went to to get a little love from the press was nothing short of taking to the steps and dropping all pretense, starting with a silly article of clothing. What does that say about China and a looking glass? Beyonce', Jlo, Rihanna, Kim K and others seem not to have gotten the memo that perhaps it's a good idea to show positive examples of womanhood and beauty for the little girls out there looking and yearning to be just like them. Images of Kim K and her rear end were like looking at a sideshow star on the night the circus is closed. Even Anna Wintour was dressed in a not so flattering look. That dress coupled with a smiling, de-spectacled Wintour was like looking in the tent where they keep the babies floating in formaldehyde. Unsettling. Even nightmare producing.

The Costume Institute Ball was once a party to end all parties, if you cared for fashion and the world that made it up here. It was elegant. Exciting. You got to meet the players and dance til dawn with a whole mad mix of New Yorkers. Amazing things could happen. It was Vegas jackpot experience for me one year. A stylist from Vanity Fair complimented my date and muse Bernadette on her gown and next thing I knew there were 6 looks at a cover meeting for the Hollywood issue of the magazine. I ended up with 2 gowns on that cover. The only guy with 2 and on the backs of Jada Pinkett and JLo that year. Who knew? For 150. and a tux the world could be your oyster. If it were today? Well, if it were today there'd be no story to write. Still, go see the show. It's great. 

Copping to Oscar... Fall/Winter 2015

I suppose next to the shows of Marc Jacobs, Carolina Herrera, Proenza Schouler, Tom Browne, Calvin Klein, Alexander Wang, Joseph Altuzzara and Jason Wu, the debut collection of Peter Copping for Oscar de la Renta was the hottest ticket of the season. So much anticipation and speculation roiled the denizens of Park Avenue and points farther east, south and west. What would he do? How would he handle the enormous pressure of moving the storied house forward. Would Annette, Oscar's still-in-mourning widow and all of her ladies in waiting give the nod to Mr. Copping? Forget the singing, the dancing, and courtliness of that legendary man of the world. Those arts died with him. Instead, what of Oscar's 6th sense for knowing precisely what his Ladies wanted, needed and craved? Could this Englishman schooled in the subtle art of French Haute Couture come to this raucous land of snap crackle pop and actually make an argument for the house's future? The answer to that question is a qualified yes.

Qualified simply because it was neither a triumph or a failure. The 47 looks added up to a safe, at times sparkling, but most often an almost quaint display of artistry. The first looks out with their lovely, weightless silk and lace trimmed blouses over short bias striped wool skirts had a youthful quality. So delicately wrought were those blouses that they looked untouched by human hands. That's technique at its best. Perhaps the absence of jackets or coats over those looks gave them that schoolgirl feel that every matron over the age of 60 craves. Though lengths were short, the high waists added that extra above that had so skillfully been excised  below. One detail seemed to cancel out the other and all in the same piece. Then came the suits, the suit and coat dresses and printed silk dresses. Sweet but redolent of the days of Jack Mulqueen and the $150.00 silk dress, a working girl's dream! With prim coats in plaids and fur trim circling the hems and cuffs, this was not so much a fashion question as it was a style statement; familiar and yet hackneyed.  Styling becomes a thorn at this moment as that sense of mad mixing and matching begins to color and underwhelm the work.

The Lady never slips off her pedestal. Instead that pedestal becomes crowded with the "codes" of the house we hear so incessantly about: sweetheart necklines, skinny belted uptight suits with little sex appeal, jeweled pumps and smart bags of indeterminate origin. Cocktail dresses abounded in racy lace, nude appearing bodices armed with boning to keep all that order in order. About now I started to yawn.

Gowns followed with many in black and white. For all those women who beg to have a dress with sleeves, well, come and get it. Copping showed his ability as a colorist with rich saturated mixes in short and long dresses. Nice. Where I found issue was that some of the colorations felt like timid YSL mixes and shapes smacked of older Oscars by way of new Diorisms. Nice but not great. Nicole Phelps of Style.com fame went further to question the fit of the clothes. The clothes fit. The studio there is so deeply schooled in the discipline of quality, make and fit that questioning that is utter nonsense. But like Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times, Ms. Phelps is a dilettante better suited to chronicling her own outfits than analyzing others, like the pot calling the kettle a plate.

Perhaps in time the collection Peter Copping wants to propose will appear without the weight of other's expectations, mine included.

Louis Vuitton Fall2014: Nichola's Ghessing Game

Considering Nicholas Ghesquiere's (pronunciation : Knee-ko-lah  Guess-ski-yair. Now you try it.) astounding coronation 12 years ago when he took up the scepter and Orb as Directoire Creatif of Balenciaga, (pronunciation: bah-Lawn-see-Ya-ga), (for fun let's try another. Lanvin is really Lawn-van...the last N is semi-silent) Fun, non?

When he took the wheel his first collections were homages to the master with faithful adaptations of original styles from the archives. They were a bit arch without the fluidity, loft and movement of the originals, in large part due to a possible lack of understanding of how fabrics must be left to lead, not forced to comply. Still, they were interesting in their newness to many eyes uninformed and unexposed to the originals. I'm sure Hubert de Givenchy (pronunciation: you-Bare De Zhee-von-Shee) twisted on his Louis Quinze  (Loo-ee  Cans) settee reading about or watching the proceedings.

Still the ever elusive DNA of the house was respected; the "codes"adhered to and all was well in the jungle. Then the inspirations of the Directoire bubbled to the surface setting off a DNA storm. One such burst of creativity was the appropriation of Koos van den Akker's collage vest that appeared on the runway much to the chagrin of those who knew who and what that was, creating a frisson of questions and doubts. For the following 12 years the house and its codes teetered off into space like a scene from "Gravity". Some people are just happier in space.

The clothes became harder and more self-conscious by the season. New"man-made" high tech fabrics appeared and all the talk became about the march towards modernity with Nicholas leading the charge, metal yardstick in hand and hordes of lemmings in his wake. Editors from here, there and wherever. Only one successful IT bag came from his tenure and a few truckloads of clothes that were increasingly more difficult to wear or grasp though liberally copied by many in the marketplace. Fashion at Balenciaga became a thing so precious, its siren song so high pitched that only dogs could hear it. Then the party stopped. Finis! (pronunciation: Fee-knee)

Fast forward to Marc Jacobs's exit from Louis Vuitton and enter Nicholas to the relief of all the major fashion mags, assorted hangers-on and every Intern (definition: Slave. Granted, minus whip marks and shackles. At least not obvious ones.) worth his weight in Starbucks coffee filled trays. Word next to the 3-D printer is that he's the Messiah.

The anthem that opens the show was so ironic. "Copy Cat", a cheeky drone of a tune frighteningly apt:

"OOO Copy Cat...You're my puppet...sit on my lap as I work, Baby Girl... I'm such a fan of this dress, I bought it 5 years ago" and on and on." That summed up much of what marched through a labyrinth of a place; stuff from 5 years ago."

The clothes were almost all an homage to Nicholas's glory days at Chez B. Hard, stiff leather a-line skirts zippered down the front, a billion of them cut the same with an added pocket, a printed fabric instead of leather at times plus or minus a single bold pocket. Lots of turtleneck sweaters and sweater vests tucked in, a white one with a wide lace band crossing the sleeves and body, the same shoe over and over paired with quilted little bags or rectangular metal mini-cases.

The coats and jackets in leather, bonded leather, patch worked leather, leather with the look of signature Courrege, especially a zippered knee-length black crocodile coat, slick and tough looked really right. Baby doll empire cut dresses appeared along with some regrettable softer ones that looked like he hadn't a clue what they should say or do. Booties with criss-cross straps and thorn heels (Roger Vivier-isms by way of Walter Steiger-isms)  completed the look. Leather and cloth high-waisted trousers looked sexy with their stiff zippered polo sweaters including a smart tan top were wrapped and tucked in. They were hot looks, like a taste of something great but then the waiter takes away the dish you've only just begun to savor.

The problem for me was that it wasn't a new message but the same one just moved  down the street from one house to the next. He plans to create a "total look" for LV as though one doesn't already exist. Marc Jacobs did a fine job of it, especially in the last 3 or 4 years. It wasn't broken, but now its showing signs of fractures. There were only 50 looks but it felt like hundreds with an audience of thousands looking kinda bored. But, hey, its the second coming so maybe I'm just blinded by so much divine light. You decide.


*images courtesy Style.com   *Video courtesy Fatalefashion   *Layout courtesy of Garnet

2013: S&%T I loved last year....

It's 2014 and time to gird our loins for what could be a very interesting Fall season to come. As 2013 limps off to the place where bummer years go, the collections are just a matter of weeks away. For the diehards out there who just showed Pre-Fall a month ago, this spitting up of more, new and even more editorial stuff must kind of suck. There's no time to enjoy the fruits of ones labors before heading back to the delivery room. Last year was on the whole a very tame, monotonous period with lots of uninteresting clothes, tepid shows and high profile entrances and exits in the international HR offices. If anything it was the gaffes that were more interesting. Design has taken a back seat to banal PR for banal characters in the fashion business. Like a slow day in the newsroom, that day stretched for almost a solid year. When there's nothing to celebrate then you elevate the 2nd and 3rd tier and try to make the most of it. With that said, I do want to take some time to share the things I liked and the shit I loved. There were some shows that were outstanding.

Ralph Rucci staged 2 fantastic shows, spring and fall, and both were jaw droppingly beautiful. These are not clothes to look at on a video, you need to be up close just to take in a shred of his design brilliance. I know, big words for Ralph but hey, when it rocks, it rocks.

Valentino was consistently fabulous. Chiuri and Piccioli have taken that house to a new level. One that no one in Europe at this moment is able to touch. From evening clothes, amazing accessories to their budding daytime vision that's so smart and straight forward Perfectly illustrated in their Resort 2104 collection above, you wonder why no one else thought to do it. Unfussy, unstudied sportswear that oozes sophistication and ease. But their couture collections last year were splendid. Its so romantic and at the same time spare. Like a perfect meal it's all delicious and leaves you sated, not stuffed.

Maison Rabih Kayrouz (above) in Paris was a big surprise to me. He is so creative using the most basic shapes, combined and cut in sumptuous fabrics and eye popping knits. His Spring 2013 collection was full of inventive clothes incredibly modern and alluring. If I were a girl with an axe to grind I'd be covered in his clothes. Look and see what I mean. YUM!

Balenciaga by Alexander Wang was also a surprise. Chic, sleek, faithful and young, these clothes made Wang, the boy, a man. From the presentation of Spring2014, the mood of the show and the clothes were so assured, sophisticated. Its like Paris forces one to up his game or get out. I have to admit that as far as Wang/Balenciaga goes, "game on". Oddly, this new stage he inhabits has unfortunately upstaged his namesake gig. There was no pulse. Not everyone can juggle a ping pong ball and beach ball at the same time.

Carolina Herrera's Spring2014 collection (above) was a huge departure. Gone was the seriousness of hyper luxe and in its place beautiful simple sheath dresses and columns in graphic prints like angular Spirograph drawings in cream and brown among other chic color combinations and shapes. It was so easy and so rich it left you trying to figure out how she and her team did it. In a moment, they changed the mood of the house from self conscious to self possessed. There were lots of great clothes. I stood in the nose bleed section and still got chills. Just sayin'.

With the exception of some way beyond suits, jackets and some evening clothes and styling to make your toes curl, Lagerfeld at Chanel is starting to show his age. Sure, it's still the hottest ticket but more of that is built on hype and ancillary bits and bobs that somehow distract us enough to keep cheering. The show is the thing. Conceptually and scale-wise, Chanel is still the Queen but I'm not as curious as I used to be. The prospect of the future and the replacement doesn't keep me awake nights. Resort 2014 in Shanghai or Singapore, wherever, was pretty incredible. The girls with their 2 toned hair like a boy's cut with long unruly bangs made me wish I could throw my hair. It was very, very sophisticated. So worldly and knowing that it made you squirm...in a good way.

As far as extravaganza shows, one can not ignore Marc Jacobs staging of his Louis Vuitton collection delivered by escalator. That was in a class all its own. So beautifully choreographed. An army of checks in a myriad of soft compelling colors came and went in pairs, with matching shoes and bags. I didn't want it to end. That's saying a lot for Jacobs who too often leaves me cold. His Spring collection here in NYC for his namesake collection was also very interesting with a theme of bold stripes. Though it seemed a warm-up or afterthought in regards to LV it still had a nice kick to it. Very Edie Sedgwick, but Edie before the fall. Happy before the sadness.

 I'll share some more things I loved from this past year. Books and scents were a large plus and travel was maybe the best of all.

* Images courtesy of Style.com
** Image layout courtesy of Garnet Spagrud

Louis Vuitton Spring2014: Marc Jacobs' Swan Song

It's with mixed feelings that I view Marc's departure from Louis Vuitton. The collection shown a couple of days ago strikes me more as an homage to his tenure there, the incredible shows he staged, the creation of a luxury clothing business where there was none before his arrival, the buzz he created in a city of staid fashion houses no matter their appearance to the outside world and the incredible success that Louis Vuitton and the LVMH Group enjoyed from his labors. 

I was never a big fan of the work as it struck me as uneven, sensational, too often mired in its own self-consciousness. Still there were moments, recently, where the work resonated with wit even brilliance. The sets and production values too often over shadowed the clothes but that was ok when the clothes benefited from that overshadowing. The fact that some of his most memorable sets were present for this final defile' helped to underscore just how incredible a mark he made.

This last collection is hard to judge as it feels more like a statement than something for the selling floor. Sure there were beautiful dresses in the beginning with beaded lace inserts. The chiffon tops sparingly scattered with jet crystals artfully covering breasts and baring all else over jeans with fantastical headdresses by Stephen Jones were dramatic but more costumes than clothing. The jackets with a profusion of embroideries will certainly become collector's items and treasured forever. The total blackout of the sets, the clothes and the environment was hauntingly beautiful and in some ways more dramatic than the productions of the recent past. They added a gravity to the proceedings that was a class act from start to finish.

It can't be denied that Marc Jacobs succeeded as an American in Paris more profoundly and for much longer than any who came before. If you remember Michael Kors at Celine and Oscar de la Renta at Balmain, neither of them lasted for more than a few years each. Their presence there was exciting and successful but didn't extend long enough to leave a footprint. Perhaps, that is due to the fact that they were burdened with existing collections loaded with baggage that at the end of the day were too cumbersome to overcome. Marc's unique advantage was that there was no collection other than hand bags and luggage leaving him free rein to create the fashion from scratch. 

The most success of his 16 years were the revitalization of the handbags which have become ubiquitous the world over. There isn't one subway car in NYC that isn't stocked with at least 10 versions on any given day. So too are the streets of NYC, Paris, Milan, China and Japan, not to mention Peoria, Kansas City, Jersey City, Tulsa and beyond that are jammed with Louis Vuitton bags of every shape and size. That's the true success story. I've rarely seen the clothes on the street, only in magazines. Nevertheless, his footprint is large and his international name recognition and stature is the stuff of a fashion fairytale.

I'm reminded of a Marc Jacobs show many years back where he bowed/knelt before Anna Wintour at the end of the runway asking, "Did I do alright?" Her benediction and act of almost knighthood surely helped pave the way. That fawning obsequiousness had a lot to do with his trajectory certainly. His adoption by Anna along with that of Proenza Schouler, among others, has been the guarantee of a future both bright and lucrative. That doesn't cancel his obvious hard work and singular focus despite the schizophrenia of the work from season to season. Some say he captured the zeitgeist and wrestled it into big bucks and big trends. A mind reader and a great designer are not necessarily the same thing. His gifts in my eyes were more as an idiot savant with a styling wand. Only last fall with his Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton collections with all their graphic bombast and beauty did I start to warm to his design vision. Hopefully, this move back to NY to focus on his own eponymous collections will bring more of the magic he's shown of late.

Marc Jacobs, like a good musician, has taken us to the bridge again and again, now it's time for him to bring it on home.

Black Ice - Jason Wu Fall2013

Jason Wu's Fall presentation at a Park Avenue venue was an endless parade of tepid clothes that have the effect of Seventh Avenue Water Torture. They keep coming at you skittering on a sheet of Black Ice, one after the other, season after season, Inauguration after Inauguration until some people out there start to think there's something there. His business is apparently booming and for that I'm pleased for him. But these are not clothes for the runway. In an interview Jason Wu labels this collection as "Extreme Femininity" with a "top level" appeal for "girls who have it and have a lot of money" too. The collection is feminine in a banal way and as far as extreme, I'd have to say that applies more to the mix of looks, influences and homages to YSL, Herve (Leroux) Leger, Marc Jacobs and Madame Gres. 

Again, this is a collection with little or no sex appeal. I take that back...There were about 4 looks that were honest to God hot. One was a black python motorcycle jacket over a knife pleated white Georgette skirt. Sexy. The other 3 were a series of sweaters with alternating opaque wide horizontal stripes and narrow see through ones. In bright red and black over a skirt made of a patchwork of Russian Broad tail and a swinging pleated chiffon skirt, these were hot. Very sexy. Other than that it was a long line of YSL inspired looks that went from le Smoking in a satin sleeved wool coat dress, a red wool belted chemise with epaulets and a lot of lace with satin. A lace pattern was printed on clear plastic for trench coats as well. 

Many looks referenced Marc Jacobs collection last fall with monkey fur patch pockets on wool and satin jackets and coats and the same monkey fur grew out of collars and from waist to hem of jackets. Lanvin was tossed into the salad with a series of satin dresses with pleated and draped chiffon wrapped and tied and left to dangle in a haze of post-modernist caprice. He must have felt he'd struck gold with the Trench coat as it appeared again and again and again. Then it came out again just for good measure. All in all his best efforts were the simplest ones. I, for one, was just as non-plussed by the Inaugural gown this time as I was the first. Gowns do not appear to be his forte whether for a grown woman with a womanly figure or runway models with no figure at all. That's all I'm going to say on that subject.

 * images courtesy of style.com  Video courtesy of Vogue.com