By ERIC WILSON
Published: September 10, 2008
For a while, fashion’s new guard seemed to be stuck in a sophomore slump. Some, and I will be kind by not mentioning names, appear to have already fallen off the radar, gauging by the turnout at their shows this week. Even more-popular designers, though producing nice enough clothes, have been struggling to achieve more than a passing grade.
DEREK LAM A tank dress with drawstrings.
But among the newer names of Fashion Week, the spring collections have included two A-game shows, from Thakoon Panichgul and Derek Lam. Each designer has developed a signature. Mr. Panichgul’s is the floral print dress draped in an offbeat way; Mr. Lam’s is a preciously tailored ladylike look that always seemed somehow appropriate for the Midwest. And this season each was smart to ask himself, “Well, what else have I got?”
Mr. Panichgul, whose label is called Thakoon, started by cutting away panels from his dresses and replacing them with cages of tulle ribbons, suggesting a harder edge, if not quite bondage. This also gave a sense of transparency to the clothes, some of which were put together in combinations of sheer and opaque fabrics, like one dress with a skirt made of cotton organdy and an exposed bra top bound in tulle. Another chiffon slip dress was covered up with a see-through trench coat, something a flasher could wear without all the effort of buttoning and unbuttoning.
Mr. Panichgul also collaborated with the artist Laurie Simmons on a surreal print of long-stemmed roses, the stems being women’s legs, which added a slightly perverse feeling to his collection. That’s a nice contrast for a designer who had built his reputation with sweetness.
Like other designers, Mr. Lam appears to be wrestling with the heavy legacy of Yves Saint Laurent, who died in June and whose work has been the subject of major exhibitions in Montreal and San Francisco. Although Mr. Lam cited Coco Chanel as an influence, his oversize lamé chiffon peacoat, sheer blouses and elegant black evening trousers were crisp-looking in a YSL way.
He also showed a group of jersey tunic dresses and jumpsuits in the pale sandy color of microfiber raincoats from the 1990s that, with the addition of adjustable drawstrings, seemed unusually casual and relaxed. All this, and it didn’t look weird at all.
If the new guard needed reinforcements, there were plenty on hand. Of note was a playful performance by Catherine Holstein, a peppy up-and-comer who made some voluminous little dresses that looked to have bathroom tiles attached as sequins. And the models were wearing sweaters wrapped like mushroom-shape turbans on their heads. Until a dress passed by with tiles arranged like a heart on the back, it wasn’t obvious that she was drawing the pixilated characters from a Nintendo video game.
At Ohne Titel, Alexa Adams and Flora Gill turned sequins into tattoo patterns on sheer tights and bodysuits. (The American synchronized swimming team, lampooned for their ensembles, should feel a sense of validation.) More practical were beautiful pistachio and pink knit dresses, which looked like summer-camp potholders as interpreted by Balenciaga.
One of the cutest ideas to come out of the very cute Brian Reyes collection was an oversize pocket T-shirt made in an expensive silk fabric for evening. This was an old Bill Blass trick, luxing up the basics.
Mr. Reyes showed some chic shirtdresses and gazar tops that also called to mind the old guard, but his vision of transparency, in a beaded dress with a sheer panel of fabric in the back, was certainly new. It was cut low enough to reveal the model’s thong.
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