In the distant murky past (the Nineties) New York Fashion Week came at the end of the show calendar and served as a handy précis of the coming season. American designers, as befits their heritage, were generally a pragmatic bunch who believed that form should above all follow function; ergo, their clothes picked up on the trends of the European shows and made commercial sense of them. But now the NY shows come first, which means that one often feels designers here are digesting last season’s trends. As NY’s schedule becomes ever fuller and more cosmopolitan, it stands to reason that there is more diversity — all of which makes the single, cohesive vision of American fashion fuzzier.
You want a French maid fantasy? See Derek Lam and Thakoon. A playful twist on Eighties power dressing? Diane von Furstenberg. Ultra-skinny silhouettes? Narciso Rodriguez. Puffy and quasi-experimental? Calvin Klein’s fluttery chiffon blouses and tunics over wide tweed trousers and flannel skirts. Seventies collegiate? Michael Kors. Seventies kooky? Anna Sui. Introspective urban angst? Marc Jacobs.
Hello? Introspective angst in a New York fashion show? Things really are a-changing. But that’s OK, because fashion is changing. It’s a 23-ring circus, with all kinds of seemingly opposing but in reality overlapping trends going on at any time, any number of interpretations and one almighty central contradiction: on the one hand, we are told that what counts now is individual style; on the other (by fashion editors, it must be confessed), that this specific bag or that exact shoe is The Must-Have.
Luxury keeps redefining itself and finding ways to distance itself from the masses (who insist on buying it anyway, curse them), and at the same time, fashion has never been more affordable, and cheap has never had more cachet.
So if I told you that, judging by New York’s offerings, the suit really is making a comeback, after a couple of seasons mustering its forces, that would be true. It cropped up at Marc Jacobs, beneath all those bag-lady layers, in deliciously grown-up cream or grey wool. It swished out with unabashed jauntiness at Diane von Furstenberg, in an uplifting, convincing collection that confirmed that there is more to her than a wrap dress. There’s a shirt dress, a wasp-waisted dress, and slender, curvy unlined jackets and stretch skirts that looked so easy — proof positive that a suit could be both seductive and serviceable. It can also be a suit that isn’t technically a suit — call it executive dressing for women who fear that actually dressing like an executive would make them look like BA’s cabin crew. DvF’s chiffon blouses beneath silky tank tops (a big New York trend) and flirty skirts, with their fluted hems, did the job of a suit without actually being one. So did the strapless felt wool dresses in many collections, layered over black polonecks (a dark jumper will be very useful next winter), though when the dresses got very short and slightly frilly, and were partnered with mink trimmed ankleboots, the effect stopped being serious and teetered into oh-la-la territory.
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But that’s OK, because as we’re also repeatedly told, today’s woman is multifaceted: if she wants to play at being a modern Grace Kelly, she can do so at Narciso Rodriguez (she’ll need a Grimaldi-size bank account), with his glacial, precision-cut dresses and minimalist jackets and coats in icy storm-cloud colours. If she hankers after old favourites from the past, Marc by Marc Jacobs has the maxiskirts, Oxford bags and waistcoats to satisfy her. If she’s an unreconstructed maximalist, she’ll find all the colour and girly trimming she can handle in Nanette Lepore’s polka-dot blouses, kimono-style dresses and embroidered cardigans. If it’s low-key, luxurious elegance and soft, semi-fitted shapes (silk smock dresses with ruched sleeves, unscratchy-sleeved tweed dresses and ribbon- belted cashmere V-neck jumpers) she’s after, they’re at Wyeth, an LA-based label now showing in New York. Confused? Don’t be. Fashion is a broad church these days and the cornerstone of the faith is attitude. New York’s got a lot of that.
SUPERLATIVE SNAPSHOTS
Richest college kid: so what if Michael Kors’s gorgeous pea-coats, hipster A-line brocade skirts, ribbed jumpers, rugby-shirt stripes, over-long knitted scarves and high-waisted jersey dresses in colours that evoked a wintry English moor were a touch reminiscent of Burberry’s aesthetic? Kors’s girl has a much richer daddy than Burberry’s girl. Who else is paying for her huge fox-fur bomber jacket?
Cosiest coats: Marc Jacobs’s voluminous charcoal felt coats and jackets. Room for all your jumpers underneath (Jacobs’s silhouette is so generous that even a seven-month-pregnant Karen Elson could fit easily into the cocktail dress she modelled in the show). Wyeth’s lovely soft-as-silk tweed sack coats.
Cutest dresses: a toss-up between Luella’s silk tartan strapless ones and Anna Sui’s summery smocks. Yes, it’s a winter collection, but being season specific is so like, inside the box. (At Nanette Lepore, silk camisoles were layered over jumpers.)
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Coolest bags: Luella’s quilted tributes to Chanel in patent, sheepskin or leather. Next winter it’s all about gilt chain handles.
Show that made us envy Jacquetta Wheeler’s legs: Derek Lam’s; his black leggings look chic under a long grey jumper — if you’re a beanpole.
The winner of the “OK, designers have big mark-ups, but how much can he get away with charging for a leopard-print velvet skirt?” award: Marc Jacobs
Cruellest comment (by a TV director, guiding his camera man towards a front-row guest who’d clearly spent a long time getting ready): “Over there at one o’clock. Check out the surgery and stay focused on it.”
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The most it’s-all-relative comment: Daria Werbowy, 22, the new face of Lancôme, says she feels old compared with all the 14-year-old models at NY Fashion Week.