This is Part One of a two-part tag team review.
The Collections had their own week last year, apart from Portland Fashion Week. While there was the temptation to see it as a Jets and Sharks thing, the reality is more apples and oranges. A group of designers who have been working with and for each other, in some cases for six or seven years now, they are all practitioners of the most comprehensive kind of DIY ethos. As the program noted, these designers frequently make their garments themselves, and do so in small enough quantities that they don’t always stick to the spring/fall show schedule (case in point: the duo Church + State were MIA last night on the runway, though we saw them in the audience). It makes sense for them to stick together, and it was wonderful to see them as part of the larger scheme represented at PFW while retaining the cohesion that makes them so important.
Simplicity would be an understatement in describing Jess Beebe’s Linea line: she led off with a dress in a washed out plaid which looked to be made from one piece of fabric, sewn in a maximum of three places. Subsequent looks had a few more seams, but absolute minimalism reigned; somewhere between Andrea Zittel, and Issey Miyake’s APOC concept. A boiled wool dress in black had pockets in a hemline that simply ran six inches long in the front, then was upturned, looking faintly like a cycling jersey. Even the zippers followed the theme; rather than the standard invisible zip, Beebe put them out in the open, sewing them cleanly wherever they usually go but on the outside of the garment. A gray brown gauze look was as complicated as it got, with slightly puffed sleeves and a belt/pouch in the same material serving as the only detail.
Dayna Pinkham would seem to be the odd one out for the obvious reason that she only clothes the head, but she turned this seeming obstacle into a focal point for her show, sending out a series of haberdashery in the guise of tableaux. Last year she showed hats over spare black outfits, but that was in the exclusive confines of a moving streetcar. With her runway stationary this year, and much more crowded, she gave each hat a backstory. The first model came out bareheaded, made it halfway down the runway, then turned to receive his black fedora with grosgrain band from a female model wearing only a man’s tuxedo shirt. Another model paused midway down to remove a collapsible black toyo fedora from an Entermodal bag. And even when the staging wasn’t bordering on either side of camp, as with the model swaggering suggestively in the oversized hunter’s cap in black felt trimmed with blue fur, the outfits still told a subtle story. The homburg was shown over an ascot while a black and white checked toyo fedora came on top of a sleeveless t-shirt and capris. A line showing more depth than one would expect from the usually staid world of mens’ hats, with some striking colors such as steel gray/blue and loden green. And let’s not forget the final look: a his and hers set of fedoras, his white with gold feather, hers just plain gold, on top of a pimp and his companion.
John Blasioli of A Broken Spoke spent some time working for Adam Arnold, and you can tell why; a cool minimal aesthetic pervaded a breezy spring line. The first look featured a memorable Japanese print over a sea foam green vest which was itself memorable for both the color and the vertical stripe ending in three buttons just below the neck. The sea foam knit made another appearance in a deep v neck sweater over a pair of shorts. Below the belt, Blasioli’s denim work was as strong as ever, with this season’s signature being the slouched welt pocket; the pants themselves fit very well and began where they usually do, and the pockets began halfway down the backside. Another Blasioli staple, the slightly architectural jacket, was also represented, this time in a shiny blue denim “wild one” version with four buckles on the asymmetrical closure and a more muted black denim look which closed with an unexpected yet subtle bow at the waist.
Not part of last year’s Collections, Daniel McCall was nevertheless a welcome addition, showing a line of dresses inspired by, but not at all tethered to, Madeleine Vionnet, one of the first designers to make the clothes fit the woman instead of vice versa (see our own Patricia No’s piece on McCall earlier this year). The lines of his tiered muslin dress would not have been out of place on Jane Russell or Dorothy Lamour, but the layered cotton execution kept things in the here and now. A pair of jersey dresses, one black, one gray, were similarly inspired but updated. The former featured swooping asymmetrical seams on the bodice and a slight bustle, while the latter was cap sleeved, with v-shaped yoke detailing, harkening to Christian Dior’s New Look silhouette. His closing look, a kimono-style wrap dress in dark red and black striped silk was particularly good as it made artful use of the fabric on diced sleeves, creating a zigzag effect.
– Will Levin
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