Coach held its fall show of lived-in leather and upcycled taffeta in the palatial former residence of James Buchanan Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Co. Duke built the house between 1909 and 1912, in the French chateau style, and on Monday, to kill time, celebrities and other guests scampered up the massive staircase and posed for photographers. Once the show began, a thin young woman emerged from a side door in the equally grand front hall, where many of the guests were seated (and at first I took her for a late-arriving VIP, making a dash for her perch). But she was an anti-leather protester; the security tackled her and the last I saw of her were her legs as she was dragged back through the door.
By then, the original version of Audrey Hepburn crooning “Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was playing. Truman Capote is really having a moment. The scene was discombobulating, though: If you were to see most of the clothes — rumpled dark raincoats, hoodies layered under sad tuxedo jackets, the crushed-taffeta frocks — in a different, less august setting, you’d think they belonged to a bum. Indeed, there was a weird undercurrent of the kinds of movies made during and about the Depression, like the 1936 My Man Godfrey, about a socialite (Carole Lombard) who brings home a man (William Powell) she assumes is impoverished because he lives in a shanty near the river.
Context is everything, of course. In using one of the most heart-tugging of songs, in a house based on the fantasy of nobility and from a fortune made in cigarettes, and with a striking cast of young people who looked like they grew up in Manhattan, the Coach design team (led by Stuart Vevers with a brilliant assist by the stylist Olivier Rizzo) subtly conveyed a very tender picture of worldly youth. As I said, some of these clothes would probably not stand out on a store rack. They lose their feeling without the suggestion of a rich kid wearing his grandfather’s old overcoat or a girl in a drab cotton jacket tightly over a black party skirt.
Ultimately, this show — and without trying too hard — said something about class, wealth, and, perhaps, race. Who, really, is that kid in the long rumpled and faded coat? Is he a scion or a lurker? A dropout or a dazzler? The casting (by the veteran Ashley Brokaw) was remarkably effective in that the models looked not merely adolescent but far the older stereotypes of privilege and prettiness. They appeared cool and smart, for sure, but also vulnerable.
The New York shows have seen an impressive range of experiment and polish. “We were thinking about making the everyday sublime: an old jacket, a lampshade, even a shower cap,” Tory Burch wrote in the notes for her collection, at the majestic Public Library.
That was less kooky than it sounds. The lampshade was simply a neat skirt (and matching sleeveless peplumed top) with heat-sealed seams that gave the classic A-shape a mild squared-off look. The shower cap was sublime: a beige jersey mesh minidress with a mob of curlicue ruffles at the hem. Burch showed the style alone and with a tailored jacket. All in all, the collection made the experimental an integral part of the everyday, with a shower of metallic raffia used for electric-looking coats.
There was also a nice Belle de Jour hint in the show, brought out by the styling (the work of Brian Molloy). A good example of this was a white silk chiffon coat treated by a process that made it seem like latex. The model had on ladylike pumps, stockings, and dark fang nails. Whatever she had on underneath hardly mattered.
Sergio Hudson clearly raised the stakes for himself. His clothes are often sexy and colorful, but he focused on tailoring this time, with sweeping, sharp-shouldered coats, trouser suits in rich browns, and many bustiers to help mark the silhouette. Although the big hair and high-glam makeup looked a bit dated, the shift to tailoring was a forceful statement.
Piotrek Panszczyk, the creative director and co-founder of Area, is always experimental, not to mention witty. In the past, he’s conjured the image of insects and fruit into a look; this season it’s eyeballs — lots of them, big, flat, cartoonish eyeballs adorning clothes in the surrealistic tradition. Who’s looking at you? Everyone! Clustered in tiny shapes all over a minidress they suddenly resemble feathers. Indeed, one idea led to another, as it often does for Panszczyk, who is the most nimble of designers. The black-and-white eyes evolved into a kind of Dalmatian spot. There were also wonderfully weird dresses, in wool or denim, with porthole openings that framed a large, dangling crystal. Amid everything were Area’s refined bread-and-butter denim, but it’s Panszczyk’s artistry and use of new materials that continue to dazzle.
Wes Gordon also put on a strong show for Carolina Herrera, on Monday, refreshing his ultrafeminine dresses with new pastel florals and almost buffering that sweetness with bold and well-done architectural shapes, including the opening look of a pair of black tailored trousers with a wide flounce of black taffeta spiraling to the floor and worn with a skintight, bright red turtleneck. Just as novel was a light pink suit jacket with sleeves gathered in deep folds at the wide shoulders and then lightly embroidered in gold around the midsection. It was strange and different, but the difference that Gordon knows he sometimes needs.
Cathy Horyn , 2024-02-13 21:11:57
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