design Emily Ryan. photo Pete Springer
Well, the dog ate our homework and the computer ate half of our Collections review. Day late and a dollar short or better late than never. As Mr. James Brown has said, “Give it to me one time. Give it to me two times.” If it’s Tuesday, it must be Portland (oh, wait, it’s Wednesday).
Sure it’s true that everyone needs a sweater and a good party dress, but a Behnaz Sarafpour or a Proenza Schouler just aren’t going to knock your socks off. The thrill of fashion is in the innovator, the artist, the outlyer, the Hussein Chalayan, the Pierre Cardin in his day, the Christian Dior in his. So it is that each season we look forward to The Collections whose designers have one foot in art and one in commerce with the weight shifted in greater or lesser degrees toward art and experimentation.
design Emily Ryan. photo Pete Springer
Emily Ryan’s continued experimentation, and she’s been doing this for a while, is always fresh. She creates texture and structure by applying traditional techniques like pleating, for example, but in totally new ways…a gown with cascading swirls of little pleated ruffles stands out from memory. The first dress of the evening was an engineering marvel. Ryan’s charcoal trapeze of strips of fabric horizontally smocked suggesting a honeycomb, its structure holding it rigid. Her gathered circular insets on a caped dress (the cape attached at the waist of the dress, something we saw a few times this week) were equally interesting. It’s great too that Ryan doesn’t distract from her construction by using showy fabrics, the matte cottons let the design speak volumes (in more ways than one). Her work is all about possibility and paving new paths, and we love it.
design Liza Rietz. photo Pete Springer
design Liza Rietz. photo Pete Springer
A kimono theme infused Liza Rietz’ collection, but because this is Rietz, it played out in subtly beautiful ways (there were no wrap-fronts or kimono prints) like the addressing covering rather than exposing the body with two long looks, a long grey suspendered skirt, and a long pink wool crepe kimono sleeve dress. Another idea (playing off kimono sleeves) was the excellent oversized, drapey pockets lined with contrasting fabric that appeared on a couple of garments. Her charcoal kimono jacket seemed so contemporary although its form is very traditional (we’re seeing a lot of drapey, shawl-like coats ringside on the modern girls).
design Holly Stalder. photo Pete Springer
design Holly Stalder. photo Pete Springer
Holly Stalder’s knockout look on Janessa cast elements she’d used before in a new light. Her double ruffled peasant neck blouse with puff sleeves was cast in a blue ombre taffeta worn over matching hotpants! A great tea-colored minidress in layers of long ruffles, modern as you please, was sent down the runway with an almost Bo Peep hooded eyelet jacket. Stalder does occasion dressing with a kind of edgy nostalgia, looks that are pretty, with their sweet ruffles and vintage trimmings, but interesting too in their assymetric flourishes and details like an oversized hook and eye closure on a patchwork lace jacket.
design Kate Towers. photo Pete Springer
design Kate Towers. photo Pete Springer
Kate Towers began last season to look at moving the garment away from the body a bit, and here she did so to great effect, particularly with her minidresses, one, an oversized dove grey blouse, really with a big bow at the neck and another black half sleeve dress with a crisply white jabot. Towers’ work had a lot going on at the neck with big bows and double ruffles at the neck from her opening look, a long layered tulle wedding dress, to her closing look, an almost too-prim white empire with ball trim at the neck.
dress Genevieve Dellinger. photo Jaycob Desrosiers
Genevieve Dellinger’s scarf dress had lengths of purple fabric attached at the waist that were worn slung up and around the neck with oversized balls at the end riffing on upholstery tassels. It was a strong look, as was her grey shift with its copper strip up the back (very Barnett Newman) that was one of our favorite things because its the kind of dress you’d want to wear daily and every which way. But how these things held together with her Sherlock Holmes coat, good hooded mini coat/dress in a big check, and ultra high waist pants (kind of like 19th century drop waist pants with double row of little buttons), was hard to understand.
dress Elizabeth Dye. photo Jaycob Desrosiers
design Elizabeth Dye. photo Pete Springer
design Elizabeth Dye. photo Pete Springer
Saying Watteau train is kind of all you have to say to get Elizabeth Dye who made a gold satin minidress, pleated in the front with a rolled collar and the aforementioned train behind. It’s a schooled design sense (though autodidactic) in more ways than one, with crisp historical references and rigorous construction. Dye had one foot in fall and one in next spring for the looks she showed. A petal-backed shift and excellent cape-sleeve coat in a light grey wool for fall, an airy trapeze dress in a vaguely floral grey and yellow print (one of our favorite looks of the week, really) sang spring. Dye did do the one impossible look of the night. In a sea of non-mainstream garments that might prove challenging to wear for many, her eyelet babydoll, which really wasn’t so far from mainstream ideas, because of its length (short) and volume (extreme) could not be made right even by the week’s most fierce model.
More photos to come.
–Radon
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