Sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy took a trip last year to Death Valley–and it shows. The designers built on their fall collection, which paired loose knits with edgier fabrics in elaborately constructed garments, creating a spring presentation full of extravagant detailing and beautifully draped dresses. Forget all those sci-fi movies from the 1980s, with men and women dressed in identical, skin-tight, mylar suits. These are what the chic girls of the war-ravaged, globally warmed future will wear: fantastical dresses that seem to be made of found fabrics but which hug the body like haute couture, and black tribal arm tattoos drawn on with magic marker. In a season when most models skulked down the runway like survivors of an explosion, the Rodarte girls stomped out looking proud, strong and defiant, like goddesses floating above the wreckage.
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The wonder boys made a glorious comeback this season after a few years out of the center spotlight. Their collection was full of winks and nods, clever details and tromp l’oeil designs that had audience members grinning from the first look through the finale. Models came out in finely crafted dresses made from bits of shirts and other garments. The effect was of pretty young daytrippers with shirts and sweaters tied just-so around their waists—but instead of bunchy and ill-fitting, the garments looked sleek and modern. Same goes for slim-cut trousers with an elongated surfer-stripe, the puffed up (but somehow not bulky) black blazers and the high point of the collection: a series of skirts and cocktail dresses decorated with, yes, tinsel, ensuring all the coolest downtown girls will be dressed in garland come spring.
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Marc Jacobs’ shows are always high theater, but this year’s runway presentation took all that drama literally. Drawing elements from ballet, Broadway, and Kabuki, Jacobs sent his models out with white-painted faces and tight buns. The whole time they seemed on the verge of breaking out into pirouettes or arias–or both–and it helped that Lady Gaga was right there in the front row, performance-ready in a spiky black eye mask. As usual, a hash of influences went into Jacobs’ immaculate collection, which ended with an ethereal white dress with thin black tracings, a spectacular piece that looked like it had been constructed by a 3-D stenography machine. (Like de la Renta, Jacobs also showed a fanny pack, and it was also divine.)
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Just in time for Sophia Loren’s 75th birthday, the greatest American sportswear designer showed a collection of looks perfect for an old-Hollywood starlet. With impeccable tailoring and loads of luxe accent pieces, his 53 outfits were just the thing for long promenades in Monaco and leisurely journeys on the Orient Express. One standout was a floor-length slim nude dress with an ornate metallic overlay—tied up with a satchel at the waist. It was de la Renta flaunting his immense skill: Anyone who can make a fanny pack look this chic deserves fashion’s highest praise.
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Rodriguez may have grown up in Newark, N.J., but his parents were Cuban–and it was that country’s stuck-in-time romanticism that showed in the designer’s spring collection. The finale dress, a simple silver silk number with a giant floating train, drew gasps of delight from the audience at his show. But the true drama came from the impact of his complete collection, full of dresses that played with shape and proportion, with panels that looked like old stained glass church windows. Perhaps most important, every single dress would look spectacular on the first lady, who famously wore a Rodriguez design the night her husband was elected president and is reportedly a loyal customer.
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While everyone else was busy imitating Wang’s big-shouldered boyfriend blazers and hangdog cotton tanks this season, the It-boy himself has moved on to yet more masculine influences for his women’s collection. The designer showed variations on old-fashioned Ivy League football uniforms, with leather helmets, lace-up crop tops and puffy-shouldered sweats. Full of curiously placed cutouts and glimpses of skin – of the sort that will be grotesque on almost anyone heavier than the models themselves – the collection was a clever mix of high-fashion technicality and sports pastiche. Come spring, Wang girls will be proud to wear his letter sweater.
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According to Herrera’s program notes, the designer drew inspiration for her spring collection from woven Japanese baskets. That influence was certainly visible in the delicate shorts suits she sent out, but how to explain the diverse collection of pieces that followed, building in drama over the course of three dozen looks and culminating in two spectacular ball gowns? The highlight was an asymmetrical floor-length number that looked like liquid copper pouring from a spout. If it’s not on the back of next year’s Best Actress Oscar-winner, then the only explanation will be that things have gotten so bad, they melted down the dress to make the award itself.
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Lim set out to reinvent basics with his spring collection and did admirably with such a challenge. He showed a light–and machine washable!–pantsuit, a sticky candy-apple red trench and a series of fluid geometric cocktail dresses that looked like a collaboration between NASA and Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. Some designers, like fellow youngster Alexandre Herchcovitch, have responded to the recession by going extra-eccentric and avant garde—Lim’s collection went far in the other direction. These are clothes women will buy and wear (and wash and wear again).
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Closing out a week full of gritty, post-apocalyptic spring collections designed for the survivors of a nuclear winter, Francisco Costa’s soft minimalist dresses were like cool cucumbers for sore eyes. The designer sent out a series of wearable, airy pieces in a palette of neutrals. There was no elaborate boning here, no strict corsets, no exoskeletons, no tribal Sharpie patterns on the models’ arms–in short, nothing Gaga would dream of wearing to next year’s VMAs. And thank goodness! Costa’s dresses were so light and livable they basically floated off the runway.
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In the last year, another Wang (Alexander) has gotten all the attention for creating trend-setting fashions for the cool kids downtown. But this fall, it was Vera who really captured that brooding hipster vibe. She paired heavy necklaces with floating tulle cocktail dresses and slim biker shorts to make outfits that could go from day to night to day again with just a stop at home to freshen up your black eyeliner. And if bewitching tie-neck capes are everywhere next spring, we’ll know whom to thank.
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