Designers project some movie magic at NY Fashion Week

Designers were drawn to the allure of the silver screen in this season’s shows, reports Susie Lau as New York Fashion Week draws to a close.

The stages are big in New York. The noise is loud. Sometimes the clothes don’t necessarily warrant the scale but you can’t help but marvel at the ambition. And when the collections do match the pomp, there’s satisfaction to be found in a thoroughly American triumph. The week was book-ended with large scale productions with plenty of razzamatazz. Givenchy’s one-off show kicked off the week with a sombre but mesmerising performance on the Hudson Piers and Marc Jacobs finished things with a red carpet extravaganza at the Ziegfeld Theatre. And so on to London we go.

Silver screen

With the rising prominence of resort shows, in which fashion houses fly editors out to far-flung locations like Palm Springs and Seoul, we’re left wondering how the main ready to wear shows can raise their game. The solution? Make a show feel totally singular. Marc Jacobs closed NYFW with an exuberant show at the legendary Ziegfeld Theatre. All the Hollywood tropes were there – the popcorn sellers and ushers, the long red-carpet walk lined with fans, and the billboard proclaiming that Marc Jacobs would be here for one night only. What ensued was a very American rich mix of all of Jacobs’ favourite themes – 1930s Hollywood slink and Studio 54 glitz were fused with rockabilly and grunge.  Beth Ditto vamped her way around the theatre and the show closed with Jacobs’ take of the MGM trailer (the roaring lion replaced with the designer’s dog Neville).

Kanye West also constructed a premiere of sorts, with a second season of his fashion line Yeezy. Once again this show was streamed to cinemas across the world. Yeezy’s army fell in line to drill sergeants’ orders in nude, taupe and brown-shaded military garb. It left guests scratching their heads but as the show was created by contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft, we can assume a deeper subtext to West’s Yeezy antics. Jeremy Scott’s collection was about kitschy ‘60s B-movies viewed through a ‘90s acid trip filter but the next night, he too got his own movie premiere. A documentary about Scott by Vlad Yudin called Jeremy Scott: The People’s Designer, is due to be released in the US today. In every instance, the public are active participants, whether as  movie-goers or as spectators lining the red carpet. Fashion as entertainment is fast becoming a reality.

Ruffles, feathers

Elsewhere the star designers of the week still focus on the clothes on the body rather than the surrounding backdrop. Proenza Schouler designers Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough had never used ruffles in their collections before, but they deftly navigated these voluminous bouncing flounces of fabrics on flamenco-tinged dresses and off-the-shoulder tops. They dialled down the techy fabrics that they usually favour instead opting for straightforward and traditional craftsmanship – like Parisian feathers, beautiful broderie anglaise.

Their skill was that they didn’t overload the body with an abundance of fabric and instead played a delicate game of seduction with clever cut-outs, unravelling layers and velvet ties. Circular embellishments of metal ball bearings and painterly circle jacquard knits only emphasised this softer and less structured collection from the Proenza Schouler boys. They’re a cut above and their clothes demonstrate that.

America the brave

Down in the depths of West World Trade Centre, beneath Santiago Calatrava’s controversial curved white plastic beams, DKNY was given a new lease of life by the designers behind streetwear-inflected brand Public School. The reins of Donna Karan’s diffusion line (she will no longer be showing her own eponymous mainline) have been handed over as Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, who wiped the slate clean with a collection that tugged and pulled between masculine Wall Street-inspired pinstripes and feminine shirting and school-uniform skirts. The duo affirmed DKNY’s New York roots.

At another of the city’s institutions, Oscar de la Renta, Peter Copping showed his sophomore collection, giving the house’s prim elegance a refreshingly crumpled and crushed aesthetic. Again, there was a whiff of Spain,as Copping loaded up on high-necked lace ruffled frocks and romantic floral prints that might have graced manila shawls. At American accessories giant Coach, Stuart Vevers staged his first proper runway show for the brand, taking us up on to the High Line where gentle cowgirls in ditzy patchwork florals walked alongside meadow flowers and greenery.  America’s open roads continue to inspire Vevers and this collection was his most playful iteration yet for the brand.

Susie Lau is a fashion journalist who blogs at stylebubble.co.uk. She is covering New York, London, Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks for BBC Culture.

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