Lady Autumn. Altuzarra AW23

February 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Like Tory Burch, Joseph Altuzarra is having a great, creative streak for the last couple of seasons. His latest Altuzarra collection – especially its intro and outro – captures the feeling one loves about autumn. The warm colours of leaves in the park. Experimenting with layers of knits and outerwear. The first couple of looks, absolutely chic and beautiful, were about combining an evening coat (or soiree jacket) with a floor-sweeping, silk column skirt. All that covered in Altuzarra’s signature tie-dye. Somehow, the designer managed elevate the print from boho to lady-like. Then, we’ve got the knitwear, which was a gracious walk down the memory lane of Donna Karan’s dance-inspired, late 1990s style filled with flowing silhouettes and body-soothing forms. The over-sized beanies – a nod to this Yohji Yamamoto collection maybe – were a cool addition. There were some low points in this offering, like a set of serious-looking, dull evening dresses that gave nothing, but then Altuzarra served the dessert. Parka coats and bomber jackets in yellow and blue satin, fur-trimmed and embellished, styled again with maxi skirts. If you look back at the designers early collections, you remind yourself this was the look that made the brand so desirable in the first place. Good for Altuzarra to revisit that trick.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Little Price. Thom Browne AW23

February 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Thom Browne became the Chairman of CFDA, and his return home – to New York Fashion Week – felt like a promise of some sort of new, creative chapter. But his autumn-winter 2023 collection was a usual affair for the designer: theatrical gestures, cartoon-ish clothes that have more in common with costumes, and an exhausting reinterpretation of the tweed jacket. There was of course a background story for the context. “The Little Prince” was the reference point (Browne heavily resorts to literature lately). The attraction, the designer said backstage afterwards, was “how the story says that children actually see more than adults do. That was really the separation between the more strict tailoring and the more conceptual tailoring – that the kids actually saw things more interesting. Because I like to see things like that.” Browne uses his runways for story telling – “for me the shows are pure creativity, I don’t think about the business and commerce at all,” he said – and he stuck quite close to the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novella. An aircraft pilot and a little prince stumbled around the downed plane, taking their time, the former in a quilted space suit trimmed in Browne’s signature red, white, and blue stripes, and the latter in a too-big jacket and gold knits that matched his hair. A group of models in intarsia’d silk dresses representing the six planets visited by the Little Prince prior to his meeting the pilot emerged next. They were followed by the “adults” Browne was talking about, in strict but supersized tailoring, who themselves were followed by “kids” in Comme Des Garçons-like deconstructed suits, shirts, and ties layered over precisely fitted sheaths. It was only at the end that Browne deviated from the script. The Little Prince goes missing or perhaps dies for his lost love, but the designer wanted a happy conclusion, and so Precious Lee assumed the form of an angel and rescued our hero from his melancholy.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Classics & Basics. Gabriela Hearst AW23

February 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Gabriela Hearst stays in her comfy zone of classics and basics. With long sleeves, high necklines, and midi lengths, the designer’s dresses are the soul of discretion. This season’s version is colorblocked in squares of red, yellow, and black bordered by white. The motif was inspired by Eileen Gray, an early 20th-century architect and furniture designer who was often overshadowed by her male peers. Hearst tends to nominate under-recognized women as seasonal muses – Gray spent her last 30 years living a quiet life. Then, decades after her death a chair of her design that belonged to Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for $28 million, the highest price ever fetched for a piece of modern furniture. There was a real connection between Gray’s vocabulary and Hearst’s today. The furniture designer’s lacquered wood screens provided the template for bags made from interlocking squares of leather. And a famous photo of Le Corbusier in the buff at Gray’s house E-1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, a large scar visible on his thigh, suggested the scarring effect seen on leather pieces. The slits cut into a burgundy trench flashed Mediterranean blue, while the ones on the burgundy strapless dress were fiery red. A pair of understated finale dresses with cut-outs on the sides from which metal panniers peeked out seemed to nod towards the chrome Gray used in her adjustable E-1027 table. She was the first to use the material, beating both Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to the punch. Hearst was gesturing toward timelessness with this collection, which at moments felt simply… boring. It was rounded out with the minimal tailoring and robust cashmere knits for women and men that she’s known for, and a new collaboration with Tricker’s, the British shoemaker established in 1829. They’ll look smart with those knit midi dresses.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Steamy Night. LaQuan Smith AW23

February 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

New York loves sexy fashion, and since Tom Ford is on and off the NYFW schedule, there’s a great need for sensual, stinking hot, evening glamour. LaQuan Smith does that so, so well. “This collection has a little bit more of an elevated sophistication,” the designer said. “The LaQuan Smith woman is growing, and she’s incorporating these sexy elements she finds here in all aspects of her life,” he added. Smith is growing, too. His cut has become more precise and intentional, as has his choice of materials. The star of the show was the tailoring. Smith said he didn’t want to take the suiting so seriously, “as we’ve seen classics from all the greats.” This was evidenced by the cleverness of the tuxedo-meets-little black dress of the first exit and the playful sharpness of the cropped jackets. Smith is known for dresses, but here he cut a solid range of trousers: some low-rise, others with hand-folded silk waistbands, but all razor-sharp and with the right fit – not too wide, not too slim, and just long enough to wear with a good pair of stilettos. As expected here, there were moments of sheerness, including mesh tops with scooped satin necklines and another with applied strips. Rounding out the lineup were bodysuits, evening dresses, and separates in stretch suede (the vertiginously low slung skirts include built-in panties, a considerate detail), a skirt and bra set in a crinkled metallic leather, and two LBDs in a patent black material. Smith also included menswear in this lineup, inspired by his recent creation of a custom ensemble for Lenny Kravitz’s CFDA Awards appearance. The looks were worthy companions to his womenswear, and the Kravitz influence was evident, particularly in the coat and monogrammed leather trousers worn by Alton Mason.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Twist The Lady Code. Tory Burch AW23

February 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

For a couple of seasons now, Tory Burch is delivering some of the most convincing collections in New York. For autumn-winter 2023, Burch is toying with the notion of perfection. “I wanted to challenge the concept of traditional femininity and beauty and twist it,” she said. Why? “I don’t think women want rules anymore.” Burch herself would seem to be chafing against them. Since the pandemic, she’s been talking up Claire McCardell, the American sportswear pioneer who gave women the popover dress 75 years ago, and channeling the freedom of her own early years in the New York of the 1990s with stretchy mix-and-match layers. She was tapping into similar instincts here with sweaters that featured pre-scrunched sleeves and power mesh dresses with built-in padding to accentuate the hips – useful wardrobe shortcuts stripped of old-fashioned proprieties. It’s hard to imagine those padded hips in a Tory Burch collection of five years ago, but even as she’s become more daring, she’s doubled-down on practicality. The building blocks of this collection would look familiar to McCardell. The outerwear in particular was strong; a navy peacoat with a brown shearling collar and a wool tweed coat with what looked like more of that padding at the hips were two of the stars. For evening, Burch’s proposal was to expose the thing that women traditionally hide – their shapewear. This idea worked insofar that the power mesh and satin camisoles were modeled on mid-century styles, when indeed those unmentionables were kept firmly under wraps. Women today, of course, expose their shapewear every time they leave the house in a job bra and performance leggings. But with their stitched floral appliqués and undone hooks and eyes they did prove Burch’s point: that women are perfectly imperfect and vulnerability can be their strength.