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.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Sharp Power. Khaite AW23

February 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

A lot is happening in Catherine Holstein‘s life. First Khaite store is opening at 165 Mercer Street later this week after a year in the making, and 10 more are planned for the next five years. Next month, her first child is due. And her autumn-winter 2023 collection, presented during New York Fashion Week, is one of her best seasons yet. “We always talk about strength and stealth, but this is about power. That’s all we kept saying: ‘sharp power,’” she said while discussing the latest line-up. “I don’t want to call it grown-up, because that sounds kind of naff, but it’s a departure.” Stripped-down tailoring is one of New York’s emerging themes – serious, even austere clothes for cautionary times. The frills and embellishments of last season’s Khaite show were missing here. There was no silk fringe or diamanté trim, no snakeskin prints and definitely no polka dots. “There’s that famous Diana Vreeland quote, ‘always take one thing off before you leave the house,’ I always try to think about that,” Holstein said. “Maybe it got lost along the way in some of the other collections, but for this one we were talking about taking things away and being comfortable with that, and that’s also empowerment as well.” It wasn’t as peeled back as that might sound. The show started with a prodigious brushed natural shearling coat with black leather trim that nearly scraped the store’s poured concrete floor, and there was much more shearling, even for trousers, which will take a very strong woman to pull off. But overall the collection was a study of silhouette and material, not surface attractions. Black leather for a lean double-breasted coat and mini and midi skirts that flounced in a-line shape from the hips. Bonded crepe satin with a chiffon under layer for dresses as high of neck and long of sleeve as religious garb. Rubberized twill for a long hooded cape. And stretch jersey for body limning dresses with a sexiness that is “owned rather than declared,” to borrow an effective line from the press release.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Chic Absurdity. Puppets & Puppets AW23

February 13, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Puppets & Puppets is one of these New York brands you can’t easily describe. Calling it “surreal” would feel somewhat flat. Elusive, weird, strange, dramatic? Carly Mark‘s universe doesn’t really need a label. One thing’s certain: she loves a cultural reference. Accessorizing a collection inspired by the Dead Ringers film with bags that have phone receivers as handles – that’s Puppets & Puppets behaviour. Then there’s a blow-up print of a 1783 painting, The Operation by Gaspare Traversi, which depicts the wild-eyed face of a screaming man being operated on seemingly without anesthesia. The gory details weren’t immediately apparent when the material was made into garments, even when large swaths of it were used on a sculptural dress that related back to one from last season. The designer also revisited the egg motif (on bras and shoes) introduced in her American Psycho-inspired debut for spring 2020. Despite a few macabre touches, the mood of the autumn collection was sunny-side up: playfully optimistic and sizzling. “I am designing with my body in mind,” said Mark. “The roses on the boobs or the egg bra, where nipples would be – it’s very suggestive. It’s very feminine, it’s very sexual, and it’s a conversation that I’m having with myself in an alpha role in a predominantly male business and world.” Two of the strongest looks were a dress and suit with sheer inset corseting, revealing the midriff; those tailored pieces succeeding in bringing masculine and feminine together, which was one of Mark’s goals. Besides the pannier-like dresses there were also sequin sheaths, a few frocks made in a retro paisley and some party-ready mini dresses. Not every idea from the collection felt refined enough, and there were some low points, like the python-printed jumpsuits and beaded head-wear. Mark tends to overwork her runway looks. Sometimes, madness needs some method.