Here's a new kind of Prairie Home Companion:
Rodarte's collection was inspired by the Great American plains of the 1930s. It was a nostalgic collection, with traces of Americana: dresses adorned with art-deco versions of a patchwork quilt; evening dresses edged with prints of wheat; honey-colored knits over geometric cowboy boots designed by
Nicholas Kirkwood. The models' hair, too, billowed like a horse's mane. "We were inspired by concepts of light and dark," said Kate Mulleavy, one-half of Rodarte's design team, after the show. The collection was much more streamlined than the past few seasons. It consisted of several trademark elements, such as high-waisted pants and criss-crossed swags of fabric on shirts. For evening, there was a red sequined knockout dress on Karlie Kloss (who wore the show-stopping red dress down the runway at
Lanvin last season and at Prabal Gurung on Saturday). But as opposed to recent seasons, when prints have been mismatched and complex layers of knits offered, this collection was remarkably simple.