Michael Kors Collection

•  Nicole Phelps
• December 13, 2013

We could tell you how Michael Kors Outlet arrived at tomboy glamour. It has something to do with his distaste for the term Pre-Fall, the increasing irrelevance of seasons in general, and the realization that a boy"s wardrobe is seasonless—just the thing for clothes that arrive in stores in May and linger through November. But what does it matter when the clothes in question look this good?

He opened with a double-breasted camel coat, an oversize blue shirt, and slouchy yet tailored gray pants, worn with crocodile sneakers, a first for the label. Menswear vibe established, he started riffing: embroidering sky-blue chinos with rhinestones in a paisley motif, accessorizing a foulard-print pantsuit with matching loafers and zip pouches, morphing a rep scarf into a pleated skirt, and cutting a black-and-white houndstooth fabric into a strapless dress. The look that best captured the collection"s feminine swagger was a cashgora robe coat in fawn (a light brown), tossed over a black cashmere sweater and full-leg scarlet trousers. The flat shoes were key. He even believes in them for evening. A gorgeous black sequined dress over-embroidered in crystals was shown with shiny black oxfords.

Kors has a new name for Pre-Fall. He"s calling it "trans." We"re not sure that"s a moniker that will stick, but there"s no doubting that these clothes will.Read more from: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

a very good day on Wall Street yesterday

• Nicole Phelps
• February 15, 2012

Michael Kors Outlet had a very good day on Wall Street yesterday, with his company"s shares rising 27.5 percent. The collection that put him in the spotlight again this morning won"t be slowing that upward trajectory. After 30-plus years in the business, Kors has his formula down cold. Today he conjured images of a rustic-luxe cabin in the woods in wintertime—one exceedingly well stocked with buffalo check and fox fur. His trick, as always, was to filter it all through his glamorous yet practical lens.

There"s a story Kors loves to tell, about a client who buys the designer"s clothes in multiples, one for every house. These, too, will play as well in Manhattan as they will in Aspen. Especially the furs—shearling, Mongolian lamb, raccoon. Their envy-inducing potential would go to waste in the wilderness. For women who prefer their outerwear on the tamer side, he showed tartan chesterfields and striped blanket ponchos with deep fringe.

Daywear was all about the unexpected mix: an almost conservative midi-length skirt paired with a knit lace tank bustier, or black leather adding edge to a gray plaid dress. Cocktail hour continued to match country with city—see the ivory fisherman sweater and the gold lace skirt. But high evening was highly polished. The crystal-beaded stretch jersey gowns in red and black with keyhole backs were stunners. We wouldn"t mind seeing an Oscar nominee wear either one of them.

His menswear played a call-and-response with the women"s offerings. He might have done better by skipping the man-furs and a tartan crombie and matching trousers topped by a leather harness, and showing some elegant formalwear instead.

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Michael Kors Collection

• Nicole Phelps
• September 10, 2014

Michael Kors Outlet doesn"t have a dark side. Or if he does, he"s never cared to show it on the runway. You can count on upbeat music, smiling girls, and enough celebrity wattage (in this case, Jessica Chastain, Jada Pinkett Smith, Olivia Munn, and Mary J. Blige) to light up a room—not that Spring Studios needed any help, with the morning sun pouring through its wall-to-wall windows.

The new Spring collection delivered on Kors" sunny reputation, and then some. Daffodils, wisteria, and geraniums were picked out in sequins on tulle dancer skirts, embroidered on a strappy sundress, or printed on a breezy natural linen skirt suit. Gingham, which we"ve been seeing everywhere, was paired with marinière stripes. And for every navy outfit, there was another in bright yellow.

Happy yet? The flower-averse needn"t worry: Kors had plenty on offer here that registered in a lower key. Simplicity is trending; shirt-and-skirt combos are one of the week"s dominant motifs on the runways and off. This is a good moment to be Michael Kors. As the king of American sportswear, he excels at such things. We"re betting a plaid taffeta button-down tucked into a black wool gabardine sarong will be one of the show"s most popular outfits. Another nice look: a crisp white poplin shirt with French cuffs that inched past the fingertips, worn with a hands-in-the-pockets full black silk mikado skirt. Show us a girl who didn"t light up at the sight of that one.

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Michael Kors Collection

• Nicole Phelps
• June 5, 2014

Before his Resort presentation got under way today, Michael Kors Outlet announced that it"s one of his favorite seasons to design. That didn"t surprise anyone who was in the room with him. He had a witty one-liner for nearly every one of the thirty-eight looks in the new collection. A cashmere and silk Baja pullover worn with a floor-length gauze maxi skirt? It was designed "for food shopping in Malibu." And a washed gabardine field jacket lined neckline to hem in sable? "The way we get people in Bushwick to wear fur." He even coined a new term. You"ve heard of #normcore, yes? Well, worn with a cotton pullover and a flippy skirt, that field jacket was #normkors.

Monologuing aside, Resort found Kors in peak form, revisiting and reworking the masculine/feminine dichotomy that has enlivened his last two runway shows. On the tomboyish side there were cargo pants in easy-to-pack crushed cotton with a touch of sateen, trenchcoat/cape hybrids (slip your arms into the sleeves or through slits in the side pockets), and the best-looking utility anorak of the season so far in crushed black satin with a fox fur lining. On the romantic side: ruffled LBDs, floral print silk charmeuse and chiffon whipped up into flirty dresses, and overdyed shearlings in shades of wisteria and oleander pink. What the really winning thing was about the collection was just how much ground it covered. And we haven"t even gotten to the tie-dye leather bell-bottoms or the space-dye sweater and matching scarf yet. Another one of Kors" witticisms: "It shouldn"t be called Resort, it should be called Destinations." As in, "Is your destination work? Is it Gstaad? Phuket?" Kors has got you fabulously covered.

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Michael Kors Collection

• Noah Johnson
• July 9, 2014

It"s tempting to use the hybrid phrase "normkors," and the designer couldn"t resist doing just that when presenting his Spring 2015 men"s collection. It was fitting, not just because the clothes mixed classic American styles with Michael Kors" vision of global luxury, but because riffs on hybridization ran throughout the collection.

"Amalfi Americano" was the theme and that cultural mash-up found its way into almost every look. A sharply cut three-button suit was punched up by polished denim, sneakers became "snespadrilles" thanks to a rope detail on the sole. Fabrics weren"t what they seemed—a hemp-linen anorak was gessoed for a less rigid waterproof finish. Sharkskin was rendered from cotton and mohair. The ultimate normkors look, a riff on a T-shirt-and-jeans look, was done with 8-ounce denim trousers and a linen T-shirt sweater. If anything, the collection was a bit heavy on the norm and light on the Kors. Subdued plaids failed to pop, and striped knits didn"t stand out from other similar offerings in the mall. But even the most basic pieces, like the double-pleated pants and zip-up blouson, had an undeniable populist appeal.

Sandals and white linen shorts suit notwithstanding, Kors" Spring collection was a mostly seasonless affair. That"s a good business decision—"It"s January when we ship it," Kors remarked—and it affords a glimpse at the kind of smart, consumer-first thinking behind his vision of comfortable luxury. It"s not for nothing that he"s one of fashion"s few designer billionaires.

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Michael Kors Collection

• Nicole Phelps
• February 18, 2015

Damn, he"s good. You walked out of Michael Kors" show this morning buzzing, and it wasn"t just Florence + The Machine"s hit "The Dog Days Are Over" producing that sensation. His new Fall lineup landed smack-dab in the middle of his sweet spot: opulent as all get-out, yet true to the all-American, unfussy, and optimistic spirit on which the company was built. Fur has been all over the runways this week, but it"s been a Kors staple for ages. He showed the kids how it"s done with the ombré-striped fox bathrobe Natasha Poly strutted out in to kick things off. A brown mink coat sheared into a damask pattern was significantly less extravagant but still special. Fox turned up as an accent on a lot of other looks, as well, elevating not just the crisp, neatly tailored pieces in menswear checks, but also the chunky knits.

Kors liked the idea of playing opposites off each other this season. So feathers embroidered in the shape of flowers decorated a sheath in humble tweed bouclé; a guncheck wool trench topped a glittering lace dress; and simple, straightforward men"s pajamas were black-tie-ready thanks to the addition of crystal paisley embellishments. Bias-cut dresses in black silk or gold fil coupe with an elegant, 1930s-ish vibe shared the runway with military great coats in slouched-on oversize proportions. One of the show"s strongest looks was an evening dress tailored on top like a double-breasted tuxedo. This was a broad, familiar offering, and Kors was in command of it all.

For Tim Blanks" take on Michael Kors, watch this video.
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Michael Kors Collection

• Nicole Phelps
• December 5, 2014

All week long designers have been touting the transitional nature of their Pre-Fall collections. Leave it to Michael Kors Outlet to give the idea a clever name; "from bikinis to boots" was how he described his lineup. True to his word, his clothes spanned seasons: Bare, breezy dresses mingled with a Mongolian lamb-lined patent coat, and hot on the heels of a jaguar mink jacket came a sailor-stripe lace tunic and lace pants. An all-American color palette of red, blue, white, black, and camel gave the collection an appealing crispness; ditto the graphic stripes, polka dots, and bows (a first for the designer). Kors mentioned three different women as muses: Baby Jane Holzer, Winona Ryder, and Taylor Swift. An eclectic list, to be sure, and a nod perhaps to Kors" all-ages clientele. But it gave him an excuse to riff on 1960s shapes like a mod, double-breasted coat and cropped pants, as well as more modern ones, such as his tuxedo-track pant hybrids. "Tabletop dressing" is a concept as old as Holzer, but Kors resurrected the term here to describe a fabulous little black dress with a halter collar. "It"s all about the neckline," he said. Other standouts included a plonge leather jean jacket worn with a stripey knit and a dark denim skirt, and a sequined rugby and deep cuff jeans that would get the Taylor Swift seal of approval.

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Michael Kors Collection

• Noah Johnson
• January 28, 2015

"Extreme hybrid" was Michael Kors" mantra for his Fall "15 menswear collection, where the line between dressed up and casual was imperceptible. Gray suiting in wool herringbone was overprinted with monotone camo and shrunken to fit the way guys wear T-shirts and jeans. Cashmere-blend trousers were cinched at the waist with a drawstring and slim enough to fit over pointy-toe Chelsea boots. Even geographic borders were blurred—the "L.A. coat," as Kors called it, was a trim olive fishtail with a snap-off fur hood you can remove when your flight from JFK lands at LAX. Boots came in two flavors, the aforementioned pointy and not pointy, and the expanded range of bags and accessories included a croc-print embossed leather backpack, because, as Kors said, who doesn"t need a hint of luxury? The color palette didn"t stray too far from gray and black, with some olive, camel, navy, and ivory, and it doesn"t take a fashion expert to determine that sticking with what works is one way to achieve massive success, as Kors has.

Today the designer opens his largest store in the world in Soho. The flagship will house the entire men"s collection—the first time it has ever been available at a Michael Kors Outlet store. "It"s a great platform for the company to build upon its already successful men"s business," CEO John D. Idol said in a statement. That"s a pretty hefty cosign for a menswear offering from a publicly traded company, and a reminder that menswear is serious business. As Kors said of his Fall lineup: "No high jinks."

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Michael Kors Collection

• Nicole Phelps
• June 2, 2015

After a Fall collection of mostly tonal neutrals and super-tony vibes, Resort found Michael Kors Outlet thinking along much more graphic lines. That much was clear from Look 1, a mink intarsia balmacaan in a repeating hexagon pattern that Kors, tongue firmly planted in cheek, called "your basic winter coat." There was nothing basic about the new lineup, despite its sleek, clean silhouettes. Vivid shades of coral and geranium were color-blocked on a knife-pleat dress. Large checks met small checks on shirt and skirt combos designed to look like a single piece. And even his new favorite neutral, a reddish brown he"s calling caramel, was bright.

Kors cited Art Deco, but we saw mod proportions in the narrow, slightly elongated blazers and cropped, flared pants. The cut of the tailoring felt of-the-moment without going too far out on a limb for his all-American brand. Lisa Taylor with legs akimbo in that famous Helmut Newton shot—"the image is frozen in my mind," Kors said—was the muse for a scarf-print shirt unbuttoned down to there and a matching skirt with a hip-high slit. We can think of scads of girls who will be eager to channel that look. Everybody else will be after the black sequined mesh evenings flares. They echoed the "translucent, not transparent" metallic sequined mesh jumpsuit Gigi Hadid killed it in at the CFDA Awards last night.

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Michael Bastian

• Tim Blanks
• September 27, 2006

Five years as men"s fashion director for Bergdorf Goodman would be enough to give anyone invaluable insight into the mind of the male shopper, but Michael Bastian also relies heavily on what he fancies for himself. For Spring, his second collection, that meant a look back at what he called "the perfect American sportswear" of Perry Ellis in the early 1980s, as well as his father"s sporty style in the 1960s. (An old black-and-white photo of Bastian Senior playing basketball inspired the collection"s neutral tones.) Ellis"s effortless combination of casual and formal has also become a Bastian signature, as evidenced by a tailored jacket with beat-up shorts, or a formal shirt with short sleeves. Bastian"s faith in a skinnier fit, meanwhile, was evident in items as varied as slimmed-down cargo pants, a tennis sweater, a suede fisherman"s vest, and a big-zipped windbreaker (the designer called it the "Spielberg" after the director"s on-set attire when he was making Jaws), unified by a sportiness that also looked good in a knit polo in the same mesh as a basketball jersey and a short-sleeved cashmere sweatshirt. Bastian"s experience served him well with the tailoring (he"s definitely feeling the suit for spring), but equally appealing were the funkier pieces in this big collection: frayed cutoff chinos with the boxer shorts built right in, cord low-riders, and a button-free rugby shirt.

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Michael Bastian

• Matthew Schneier
• September 12, 2011

Michael Bastian spent last season off the runway, severing ties with hisformer business partners, taking full ownership of his company, and working out new production contracts to reduce the prices of his all-American but formerly exorbitantly priced menswear. (He famously admitted he couldn"t afford it himself.) He"s only been gone a year—during which, by the way, he was crowned the CFDA"s Menswear Designer of the Year—but today"s show at his once and future venue had all the force of a misty homecoming.

For his return, Bastian presented an homage to James Dean, whose squinting, moody visage, picked out in the designer"s logo, was splashed over the backdrop. The first model emerged, a fifties kid in dungarees, penny loafers (with pennies; Bastian is nothing if not detail-oriented), and windbreaker—the rebel without a cause of Roy Schatt"s famous photo. "I"ve been keeping this inspiration in my back pocket," Bastian explained post-show. "I had this idea: What if James Dean came back and picked up where he left off? How would he dress?"

The show included bits that were a kind of biography: outfits inspired by pieces Dean actually wore, like the sweater from Schatt"s iconic "torn sweater" series; a garage jumpsuit inspired by his love of race cars; and a wrestling singlet—a nod to Dean"s days at Fairmount High. (It even read "Fairmount.") But Life of the Saint treatment gave way to an imaginative costuming. Dean died in 1955 at only 24. Who knows what he would have gone on to wear? Bastian offered a wealth of options, playing on his label"s own standards, like running shorts and frayed cutoffs, as well as immaculate tux jackets, suits, and the Stubbs & Wootton slippers he prefers. And just as James Dean can be all people, so too, said Bastian, "everyone can be James Dean for a day." Instead of a parade of blondish, blue-eyed facsimiles, he offered Deans of every size, color, and creed—including a female Dean, played by Missy Rayder.

That"s the canny bit of the Bastian magic: breadth. It"s not a virtue ofDean"s. We tend to forget because of his outsize influence, but his canon is impossibly small: just three films. This paean is just the reverse. And that"s because—and this is a positive thing—even with his love of spectacle, Bastian is a salesman as much as a showman. Backstage, he revealed he"d doubled the collection"s sales. And now it"s priced to move.

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Michael Bastian

• Matthew Schneier
• September 9, 2012

Michael Bastian"s Spring show was scheduled for high noon. High tea would"ve been more apropos, but there"s no room to wriggle on the New York calendar. Some designers might"ve blushed to put so much flesh on display before brunch, but not Bastian. There"s always been an erotic undercurrent to his shows, but for Spring he shot it to the fore. "People try to pigeonhole me as preppy," he said backstage after the show. "I don"t feel like I"m preppy at all. There"s a base of that, but there"s a base of that in any American menswear designer. The two poles of American menswear are Ralph Lauren as the superego and Calvin Klein as the id—and I want to start going more toward the id. This felt like a big step in scraping preppy off. You talk about American heritage; one of our biggest heritages is sex. I don"t feel like that"s been out there enough."

Id, he did. Bastian had begun the collection in homage to Helen Frankenthaler, whose watery colors inspired the palette, but the death of Donna Summer, disco queen and gay icon, rerouted his course. Mid-show, one of his thick-thighed avatars was sauntering out to "Love to Love You, Baby" in a glittery Donna Summer "81 ("Summer Is Back!") T-shirt. The scene Bastian had set was a Fire Island pool house, where, he said, "there"s that feeling that you wouldn"t rather be any other place."

The show"s success was that you believed he wouldn"t. This was Bastian reveling in Bastian-ness. These Adonises, unrepentant in their swagger: He loves to love them, baby. To dress them, too. The Bastian codes are well established, and they don"t veer far from season to season. Here as ever were linen suits, vintage-y short shorts, polos, great knits. There"ll be plenty to buy. But the achievement of this show was Bastian"s embrace of his own fantasy without apology. Even in a day when sexuality and equality is an increasingly visible political issue, there"s a reticence to speak openly about it in men"s fashion for fear of spooking "normal" guys, "real" guys. Facing it head on is, in its campy way, brave, even if Bastian dismisses that notion. "The whole conversation, Is it straight? Is it gay? I can"t tell who is what any longer," he said. "I can"t tell what country anyone"s from, I can"t tell anything. People like things that make them feel sexy—that"s the secret. If something makes you feel better about yourself, you"ll pull out your credit card." There"s a utopian vision for you. Fabulous.

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Michael Bastian

• Matthew Schneier
• February 13, 2012

So-called "extra men" have a storied history in polite society: they"re natural-born charmers, called upon to make up numbers at the table, dance with undesirables, and escort other men"s wives to functions when the ladies" husbands can"t be bothered.

Michael Bastian called his Fall show The Extra Man. He turned up a New York Times article from 1974 listing the top 30 the city had to offer. They ranged from Charles Addams to Bill Blass to, oddly enough, Norman Mailer, the irascible, six-times-married novelist who famously stabbed one of his wives. "Everybody wanted to sit by them," Bastian said of the extra men. "To me, it feels like this great New York phenomenon. I just love walking around the Upper East Side and seeing those guys who didn"t just take an extra 10 minutes in the morning to get ready, but an extra 40 minutes. This is a kind of valentine to them."

The extra men were a springboard to glamour for Bastian. The designer is famous for unapologetic luxe, and imagining a cast of ideal party guests gave him license to indulge it to the hilt, in cashmere and camel hair, silk and shantung. "Snazzy" was his watchword of the season. His men were unquestionably that, piled with peacock finery observed to the smallest detail.

But it bears repeating that a less-pleasant word for extra men is walkers—as in, they won"t do anything but. (Many extra men were, as they say, confirmed bachelors.) Bastian even threw in a little joke at this expense. When he arrived in New York as a young man, he misunderstood the term. "I would think, wow, these dog walkers get invited to the best parties!" he said, and spun the memory into a series of conversation-piece sweaters knitted with pups. The debonair model Pedro Andrade trotted his dog, Miles, down the runway in a quilted jacket that matched his own.

An extra man is an escort defanged, and there were moments here that were stilted, too. Bastian"s charmers were charming but some lacked the hot-blooded virility he"s marshaled so expertly in seasons past. Case in point: Most of his extra men wore floral boutonnieres. But they were resin replicas of real blooms.

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Michael Bastian

• Matthew Schneier
• September 4, 2013

The immanence of the Internet means no reference is farther than a Google search away. Michael Bastian found his on Hulu Plus. "It started with watching The Red Balloon for the first time in twenty years," he said after his show today. "It snowballed into this French-guy thing."

His invitation bore the legend French men always break your heart. But despite the warning, and hot on the heels of Fall"s grim, gothic collection, Spring found Bastian in a bubbly mood. "We want this to feel joyous," he explained, "which is an underused word."

His joy came brightly colored and lavishly printed—with more prints, in fact, than he has ever used before. There was an abundance of leopard. There were pineapples, slingshots, balloons. Even shirts that from afar seemed innocuously patterned revealed paperclips and wineglasses up close. "Print abuse" was his own term for it. Every guy reliably has a print shirt, but print on print on print on print, as the looks were styled here? "That felt fresh."

Fresh or French? Therein lies the question. It"s hard to see the pile-on of pineapples and paperclips as anything other than American brash. The strength of the Bastian look is that it is impervious to any attempts to strip its muscular sportiness and its yen for camp. A Paris-printed cap and a tourist-camera prop didn"t telegraph the American-in-Paris idea as clearly as it might, nor did the live performance by the American R&B chanteuse Alice Smith do much to reinforce the mood. That"s the distraction of Internet-era reach: Like print on print on print, it offers the narcotic lure of more, more, more. But what whiffs of Francophilia distracted from here is just how fully formed Bastian"s own world is unto itself. As if to prove the point, he customizes accessories to match. He doesn"t need to travel. His people—Stubbs & Wootton for shoes, Eugenia Kim for hats, Randolph Engineering for shades, Frank Clegg for bags—come to him.

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Michael Bastian

•  Noah Johnson
• July 21, 2014

"The Southwest is a little bit of a challenge," said Michael Bastian at his studio in New York"s Chelsea neighborhood. "I really wanted to avoid all the clichés—no cowboy, no poncho, no fringes. You know, how real guys in that part of the U.S. would dress, or my dream of how they would dress." For Spring 2015, Bastian took his collection of sportswear to Arizona. "Maybe because I grew up in Rochester, but the desert Southwest to me is exotic," the designer said.

Clichés were mostly avoided, but not entirely. There were embroidered Western shirts, suede outerwear, and bronze feather accessories from the George Frost x Michael Bastian collaboration. The best expression of the theme was in the dusty hues, soft, textured fabrics, and faded denim. As always with Bastian, the tailoring stood head and shoulders above the rest of the collection. Sharp suits in a linen-blend "denim," plaid, herringbone, and windowpane were the highlights. All kinds of trousers were reimagined in typical Bastian fashion. Riding pants and cargos were stripped down; motocross pants were made summery in faded canvas and denim; and slim, tapered sweatpants were done in gray piqué.

Bastian"s vision for guys in the Southwest favored glamour over ruggedness. There was something louche in the mostly unbuttoned shirts, short shorts, and, of course, the quintessential Michael Bastian racer swimsuit. But the ease of the collection was almost too easy. The designer might have successfully avoided clichés, but all of the softening and fading seems to have removed the grit that makes the Southwest special.

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Michael Angel

• Alison Baenen
• September 10, 2010

"How can I do what I do with prints and be a minimalist?" So pondered Michael Angel, the Australian with a gift for graphics who wants a piece of the big-time nineties revival now in full effect. His answer? Make the prints fantastic, and simplify the rest.

Prints, of course, are Angel"s bright, sexy calling card, and as usual, they were a success. The same was true of the simplification—up to a point. The predominant silhouette (a double-layer trompe l"oeil wrap skirt with a revealing front thigh slit) looked fresh, but Angel showed too many subtle variations of it, and not much else. Minimalism shouldn"t mean minimal options.

Angel did use the skirt layers effectively to experiment with texture. Leather paired with silk twill had depth, and a bottom layer encrusted with a frosting of heavy sequins emerged and disappeared as its wearer moved. Up above, he cut a men"s dress shirt off at the breastbone, creating a midriff-exposing collar top that appeared, in one form or another, in almost every look.

Intrigued by the pious modesty he had observed on a recent holiday in Rome, Angel played with the idea of hiding and revealing. He used latex (a naughty rejoinder to the ecclesiastical inspiration) to obscure the salient parts of the female form. Layered over the prints, the opaque latex made for an interesting color play. It was smart to pair the showstopping prints with cleanly tailored separates with an edge. Next time, it would be nice to see a few more choices.

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Maison Margiela

• Nicole Phelps
• September 27, 2013

Fashion"s obsession with the masculine/feminine thing goes back at least as far as the heydays of Yves Saint Laurent and Helmut Newton. And yet it never seems to get old—see any number of runways this season, from Michael Kors Outlet to Nina Ricci. But trust the Maison Martin Margiela team to put their own stamp on it. In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, windows open to a gorgeous breeze, the Maison show today wasn"t so much boy-meets-girl as it was boy-meets-showgirl. Paris, Nevada, let"s call it. Spangled briefs peeked from the top of low-slung men"s pants, and a pink sequined bustier stood out against the black of a topcoat and trousers.

By rights, this should"ve felt predictable. But if it wasn"t agenda-setting the way Margiela the man"s collections could sometimes be, it didn"t fail to charm anyway. That"s mostly due to the excellent cut of the Maison"s tailoring—an unassailable pair of pinstripe trousers, or a clever gilet that combined structure and flou. It"s hard to make a real-world case for sleeves hacked off at the shoulders and suspended from the neck by grosgrain ribbons; no one wants to work that hard at getting dressed. But lapel-less coats in leather or brushed cashmere? Despite the mad bits of sequins worn underneath, they were utterly desirable. Replica pieces apparently re-created corsets and bustiers lifted from real circuses. They razzle-dazzled you. In the end, though, the masculine side of this story edged out the feminine.

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Kris Van Assche

• Tim Blanks
• January 27, 2006

In a Paris season characterized by arcaneinspirations, Kris van Assche found his in leshommes-fleurs, a tribe of Arabian warriors whounabashedly adorn themselves with flowers. He wasequally turned on by photos of elegant old Van Asschesfrom the Belle Epoque. So the central idea was thatthere are different ways for men to be masculine.

Unfortunately, the show itself didn"t serve thisnotion as well as it might have. Michael Nyman"ssoundtrack for The Cook, the Thief, his Wife andher Lover provided a musical underlay so insistentit would have induced madness had the show lastedanother ten minutes. And a storm of windblown rosepetals midway through proved equally distracting (amannequin made his way through the blizzard with histrench held over his head).

We already know Van Assche is both rigorous andromantic, so the formal lines of the Belle Epoque didin fact agree with him. There was something of thenight in his tailoring: the dark blue suit with asheen, the double-breasted coat with a little halfbelt, even the tweed coat piped in black. His indigojeans were silk, not denim, the kind of dressy touchthat is practically a signature.

But once the hommes-fleurs invaded the catwalk,the tone toughened and the clothes roughened, notnecessarily for the better. A leather blouson waspaired with sweats, a serape was slung round a baretorso. And then, of course, there were those floraladornments. A different way to be masculine? Not thereyet.
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Junya Watanabe

• Jo-Ann Furniss
• September 27, 2014

Graphic girls as living dolls and clothes as performance as opposed to clothes for performance: This was what could be found in Junya Watanabe"s latest collection for Spring. There were certainly no heavily researched breathable fibers, just lots of warm leatherette (especially appropriate in a Grace Jones à la Jean-Paul Goude way) alongside PVC, Perspex, and the occasional jolt of tulle…oh, and rubber swimming caps.

Here, a yearning for the certainties/uncertainties of an early 20th-century avant-garde past seemed apparent—as it has for a fair few designers this season. In Watanabe"s case, there seemed to be an echoing of Robert and Sonia Delaunay"s Orphism—particularly Sonia"s performance-based pieces and a synthesis of her and her circle"s fashion work that emerged after the Great War—Sergei Diaghilev"s Ballets Russe in its various influential forms, and Hugo Ball"s Dadaist Cabaret Voltaire that began in 1916. In short, if you were looking to Watanabe for a nice pair of patchwork jeans for Spring, forget it.

Instead, Watanabe"s "patchwork madness" collection of last season—which had already begun the process of morphing into something much more abstract in many of its circular shapes, volumes, and constructions—was here turned into "graphic marching." Those are the latest defining words of the designer.

In many ways, that idea of graphic marching ties in with the thought of the "machine-age" woman of the first half of the last century—and here she was almost like the literal incarnation of the poster girl, wearing flattened vinyl circular forms and experimental compositions, marching ever forward. But what can"t be ignored in this collection, either, is the pop synthesis that conflates different periods of time. Close up, there was as much Michael Alig-style "90s club kid in there as there was Cocteau and Satie"s Cubist ballet, Parade. Not to mention Rei Kawakubo"s "flat" collection for Comme des Garçons for Fall 2012 and Watanabe"s own history of formal experiments in pleating or his love of Breton stripes. And certainly, if we are talking about graphic girls as living dolls and clothing as performance, the street-style contingent cannot be ignored—they will lap up this collection, tailor made as it is to turn them into living tear sheets. And in this way, what Watanabe did today was as much 2014 as 1914, 1994, or 1984, and it both comments on and furthers the graphic march of people as corporeal Tumblrs. God help us.

Read more from: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Diane von Furstenberg

• Maya Singer
• December 10, 2014

Designers have different ideas about how to handle the seasonality of Pre-Fall: Some treat it as, effectively, a summer collection, with some transitional cooler-weather pieces thrown in; others err on the side of autumn, but integrate lighter fabrics into the mix. Diane von Furstenberg presented her Pre-Fall collection at her studio today, and her answer to the season"s conundrum seemed canny. As she explained, she was going for an urban-hippie, Coachella-girl vibe, but aimed to give a sense of "looking toward fall." Isn"t that how women approach these clothes in reality—by clinging to that freer summer mood even as they anticipate fall"s occasional chill and its increased formality?

Newish artistic director Michael Herz did the honors, as far as explicating the collection itself. Von Furstenberg tapped Herz for the job less than a year ago, after he curated her 40th anniversary exhibition, Journey of a Dress, and it"s plain he knows the codes of Diane-ness by heart and treats them with real respect. His updates are polite. Case in point, the ur-DVF safari suit in a graphic silk jersey print plumbed from the archives and then magnified, or the classic wrap dresses nudged forward by means of leather trim. Herz is committed to the house"s trademark silk jersey and most of the pieces here featured it in some way. Sometimes it was just a wink, like the silk jersey inset on the bust of an Empire-waist patchwork chiffon maxi dress.

Not all the looks hewed to that curatorial tone. The outerwear, in particular, served to expand the DVF brand vocabulary, especially the flouncy, lightweight tweed coats woven in a vaguely tribal pattern and the silk/linen camouflage anorak with a button-out leopard lining. Still, those clothes felt of a piece with the rest of the offering this season—more than you could say for items like a shirtdress of dip-dyed lace. One of the key codes of DVF is a certain aristocratic mien, and the Coachella reference sometimes pushed this collection in a direction that felt too girly. Anyone who has ever met Diane von Furstenberg can attest to the fact that she seems like someone who"s never been a girl; you get the impression she was born a fully grown woman. That"s something worthy of respect.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

David Michael

• Kristin Anderson
• March 17, 2015

God bless the uniform. Recent years have produced a slew of young labels that have zeroed in on it, turning out entire collections of wardrobe pillars in their own vernaculars. Among the more compelling designers who adhere to that sensibility is David Michael, whose louche, perfectly imperfect tailoring remains criminally undersung. Michael specializes in androgynous pieces with a covetable rock-and-roll rakishness to them, equal parts Patti Smith and Arthur Rimbaud. To wit, Fall"s micro-suede jacket with a "priest"s pocket" tucked away in the lining of a double vent—though no doubt his woman has something more roguish to stow than a rosary. While Michael"s brand of menswear-leaning looks might be good enough to convert even the most die-hard vamps, Fall bore a goodly dose of soft, unfussy sex appeal, too. That jacket will look mighty slinky teamed with a sheer blouse and a pair of "chill pants," pull-on trousers with slouch to spare; ditto a wrap dress that doubles as a smoking. I-want-to-be-her allure plus Michael"s undeniable tailoring chops prove a hard combo to resist.

While his still-cultish status as a designer lends Michael a certain enigmatic cachet, with a who"s who of cool indie stockists (Totokaelo, Assembly, and Bona Drag, among others) and a price point that"s imminently shoppable, it won"t be long before the secret is out.

Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Christian Dior

• Sarah Mower
• January 25, 2010

Haughty, crop-switching equestriennes in top hats, veils, and impeccable riding habits; incredible ball gowns swathed and swagged in dozens of yards of duchesse satin: This was one of those occasions when John Galliano pushed a Dior couture show into the realms of sensory overload. He"d been galvanized by a research trip to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum, where—just up his romantic street—he lost himself in a recent bequest of Charles James gowns being prepared for this spring"s exhibition American Woman. "I was reading that, actually, it was Charles James who influenced Monsieur Dior to come up with the New Look," he said. "And then I was looking at a photo of Charles James doing a fitting—and on the wall behind him was a picture of women riding sidesaddle. And that was it!"

That eureka moment—plus the images of Gibson girls and Millicent Rogers in the museum"s archive—gave Galliano the imaginative license to relate nip-waisted Dior jackets with full riding skirts to frothy "Naughty Nineties" pastel cocktail dresses and end with a sustained tour de force of satin whipped into ball gowns of an opulence that would have sent Cecil Beaton into seventh heaven. By the time the last came out—a rose-tinted bustier with ice-blue petaled skirts dusted with crystal—you could hear gasps of girly delight from the front-row clients. The fight for who will wear what at the Costume Institute Gala is officially on.

Quite apart from the double-layered references, neatly trimmed to both house tradition and the upcoming American moment, this was an example of Dior teamwork meshing at optimum force. From the models" performances—Karlie Kloss walking as if she were a thoroughbred dressage pony herself—to Pat McGrath"s porcelain-perfect makeup and matte red lips, to Stephen Jones" giant snoods, veils, and hats, right through to Michael Howells" backdrop of 3,000 overblown pastel roses, it made for an unforgettable coming together of live atmosphere, detail, and voluptuous visual pleasure. After two seasons in which Galliano has set the fashion agenda with hit lingerie collections at Dior, he is, forgive the pun, a designer firmly back in the saddle.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Sarah Mower
• March 8, 2002

Michael Kors Outlet opened his Celine show with Caroline Ribeiro walking out in a long camel coat, black silk shirt with a matching fringed silk scarf, and a pair of what he calls "flight pants." It signaled the mood of a collection that was about well-cut, understandable sportswear with an international spin aimed at women with a taste for modern classics.

The warm, rugged WWII flying jacket has functioned as an iconic taking-off point for many designers this season. Kors refined it into a beautiful sandblasted shearling patchwork coat and a series of variations on the bomber jacket, and extrapolated the antique leather look into skirts and almost luggage-sized hand-held totes. He also transposed elements of the classic pilot"s jumpsuit—zippered pockets, military cottons—into casual pants and skirts in a soft gray waxed nylon and later into citified broadcloth.

But this was no history-of-aviation theme show. Instead, Kors concentrated on workable wardrobe options like luxe wool denim jeans with a tapering flare, turtlenecks, belted leather jackets and slim ankle-length cardigan coats in cashmere knit. But while fur shrugs and a huge wine-colored fox worn by Carmen Kass added a special touch, something was missing from this well-behaved presentation. Michael Kors Outlet is one of the wittiest characters in the fashion universe, and Paris mourns the sense of humor he"s applied in happier seasons.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Armand Limnander
• October 10, 2000

After his relaxed collection of classic American sportswear in New York, Michael Kors Outlet hit the nail on the head once again at Celine.

Kors" collection was inspired by visions of desert life, with rich safari and unstructured military themes. Vintage denim bombers and pale jeans, distressed leather trousers and officers" coats, suede sarongs and linen Sahara coats will be a welcome change for the ladies who donned last season"s Dynasty-inspired collection. Naturally, Kors still provided the luxurious, highly refined basics his customers swear by: There was a sensational gold-leaf cashmere turtleneck, a sinful crocodile battle number and a divine bronzed wool military jacket. Kors also indulged in cashmere sweatpants and shirts which hadn"t been done with such ease since Norma Kamali. Tortoise-print bikinis and safari dresses were also lighthearted and fun.

Kors" collection proved that you don"t have to stage a revolution to make a point. His clothes spoke of a quiet, sophisticated luxury that is perfectly in tune with the moment.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Armand Limnander
• October 7, 1999

Getaway glamour was the theme for Celine"s striking presentation: Jennifer Lopez meets Jackie O. in St. Tropez, of course, for fun in the sun. Duran Duran blared on the speakers as Michael Kors Outlet sent out a procession of hand-bleached silk denim ensembles--a new and luxurious take on acid wash, that reliable "80s favorite, this time around with matching oversized travel bags. Dresses and tops in suede and jersey followed. The fabrics were as light and easy to wear as the colors Kors favored: watercolor blue, pale turquoise and bright chartreuse. Kors" penchant for easy luxury extended to the glove-leather vests, chrome-studded cashmere T-shirts, and crystal-encrusted sarongs--which would work equally well on the beach or as evening wear by a bonfire. The accessories were no less striking: clear Lucite bracelets, stiletto mules and, of course, logo-emblazoned totes. It was an accomplished, playful collection punctuated by Kors" trademark simplicity of design and the richness of the fabrics he employed.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Christian Dior

• Tim Blanks
• July 4, 2011

You can"t be down on a boy with a dream. For decades, Bill Gaytten strives under John Galliano"s yoke as one of his most intimate facilitators, then suddenly fate conspires to throw him into the lead role, and he has the means to do everything he has ever wanted to do, everything he has ever bitten his tongue over. What"s more, he has a team of the industry"s best who have cherished him these long years for the adorable creature he is, and they are prepared to help him realize his dream: Stephen Jones with his headpieces, Jeremy Healy on beats, Michael Howells with his set design, Pat McGrath on makeup, Orlando Pita on hair. And they do this not just because they love Bill but because they want to acknowledge the achievements of his fallen master.

So what happens next?

On the evidence of today"s first Dior couture show without John Galliano, what happens is a misjudged effort to impress an alien thumbprint on an aesthetic that, for better or worse, is one of the fashion industry"s most clearly defined. After the show, a remarkably sanguine, even elated Gaytten was perfectly happy to celebrate the opportunity he"d been given to bring his own tastes to the fore, and they were significantly architectural: Frank Gehry, Jean-Michel Frank, the Memphis movement of the eighties. The opening outfit—a crazy-paving jacket with a ruffled collar and a full pleated skirt—kind of caught the postmodern madness of Memphis. And the subsequent parade of folded, tiered, unfinished taffeta, gazar, and organza had a similar assault-on-couture-orthodoxy vibe. There was a Bar jacket or two in the mix, acknowledging Dior"s legacy, but the overriding sense was that a demon, long-contained, had been released, so that the Dior woman had suddenly been possessed by a disco dolly who, to the strains of Grace Jones, would blow out her hair and rampage to the nearest dance floor in a molto-bat-winged hostess gown that perfectly captured the campiness of cult-fave TV play Abigail"s Party.

There were also echoes of one gloriously mad moment in Italian fashion when denim prophet Adriano Goldschmied produced clothes under a label he called Bobo Kaminsky, but that could hardly be considered a reference point for haute couture. The finale brought together black in a Napoleon hat, white in a crown of stars. There was one dress draped party-style in tinsel, another splattered with crystals. Then came Karlie Kloss, dressed as a Pierrot, sad clown all alone in the spotlight as the soundtrack failed and glitter showered down. But the stardust missed her by this much. And that felt like some kind of crazy cosmic metaphor.

So, once again, what happens next? Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Chloé

• Laird Borrelli
• June 16, 2009

From the "Love to Love You Baby" soundtrack at Zac Posen to the slinky, obi-tied jerseys at Michael Kors, there has been a discernible disco vibe to Resort 2010. Hannah MacGibbon played the flip side of the seventies at Chloé—think Annie Hall meets Laura Ashley. There were two basic looks: high-waisted pants, blouse, and jacket, or silken dresses with either puffed shoulders or pleats. If the cross-back overalls looked jejune, the lined waterproof capes, carried over from Fall, weathered the transition nicely.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Cacharel

• Hadley Freeman
• March 6, 2010

Cacharel is to France what Liberty prints are to England, or L.L.Bean is to America: a heritage brand that owes its appeal more to sentimentality than cutting-edge style—and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Often the best fashion moments come from an emotional reaction, as opposed to a sober bit of chin stroking about the sophistication of cut.

But in the past few years, Cacharel has become better known for its revolving door of designers than its association with seventies vacations in Deauville. Moreover, the designers who came and went—including Britain"s Clements Ribeiro and Eley Kishimoto—had pretty much taken the sentimentality shtick as far as it could go, with their sepia-tinted prints for the brand. For a while, Cacharel looked in danger of miring itself so much in the past it could well be swept back there.

But Cédric Charlier, the latest designer to take control, has done something very smart in this, his second collection for the label: Not only is he taking Cacharel forward, but he is taking it toward a gap that very much needed filling. Now that Miu Miu has gone so defiantly upmarket (never refer to it as a diffusion brand in Miuccia Prada"s presence—that"s a hot tip), there is little left for quirky teens and twentysomethings who want to look good but also pay their rent. Ladies, meet Cacharel.

Charlier—who worked with the impressive likes of Michael Kors Outlet at Celine and Saint Alber Elbaz at the Church of Lanvin—played on Cacharel"s floral associations in this collection, but with a darker and thus more grown-up twist. Mini and oversize rosette patterns were against a black background, undercutting the sweetness, and there were some excellent floral dresses with sophisticated folds and pleating. Similarly, the winter coats were oversize with shoulders sloping downward, proving that Cacharel can join in on the trends seen in some of the more haute labels this season—not least at Lanvin, where there were some strikingly similar toppers. Alber, you have trained your man well.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Central Saint Martins

• Sarah Mower
• February 21, 2009

Is there any way of reading the future of fashion by looking at the work of its newborns—the first cohort of talent that has the misfortune to be graduating into the hideous job market of 2009? Hard to say, but if there are clues, they"re going to be found at Central Saint Martins" M.A. show, where Professor Louise Wilson famously drags the originality out of the international students who come, begging to join a course that"s regarded as one of fashion"s toughest and best finishing schools.

What"s certain is there"s no sign of either despondency or fake optimism here—or of clutching onto the safety of worn-out references. Instead, what was on display looked like different facets of a clean-cut, colorful futurism that managed to ignore any association with eighties Starship Enterprise or sixties space-age cliché. Collectively, a lot of it involved planes of suede, panne velvet, and jersey, and bright color-blocking in bizarrely enjoyable combinations that shouldn"t go together but somehow did.

Dutch student Michael Van der Haam patchworked elements of fifties, sixties, and seventies dresses into new configurations (brocade against mohair against jersey), splashed metallic paint on mismatched tights, and demonstrated great command of elegant asymmetry. Laura Mackness played a rigorous but witty game with double-knit jersey shifts over leggings in pink, grass green, and bright yellow, accented with funny placements of dots, knee patches, glove cutouts, and eyes. Abigail Briggs, a print student, dribbled minimal splashes of glitter paint across long satin dresses cut to catch the air and billow behind the wearer in motion.

It was all polished, accomplished, and considered down to the detail of every shoe—a level of finish that suggests these students are striving for more than top marks in their graduation parade. As official participants in London fashion week, they know this is their privileged opportunity to advertise themselves to the world. In more normal times, a good few of them would be thinking of starting out on their own, as Christopher Kane did three years ago. But what awaits them now? It takes more than a recession to shake their professor"s faith in what they have to offer. After the show, she shook her head and said, "With the research skills and portfolios these kids have, there will always be people who want them. In fact, I know there are already. I just can"t say who."Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Cacharel

• Nicole Phelps
• June 22, 2010

Cacharel has added 50 U.S. stores to its account roster since its Fall 2010 show in March. The storied French label"s new designer, Cédric Charlier, late of Lanvin and Michael Kors-era Celine, is doing something right. For Resort, his third collection for the house, his something right is print. Working with his team, he manipulated his own photographs of flowers into electric florals. They appear landscape-style on a simple T-shirt dress or more abstractly as an all-over print on a blouse and matching pants (an important Resort trend; see also Balenciaga and Celine).

The blouse was Cacharel"s signature back in its seventies heyday, and Charlier paid specific attention to it here, adding back darts and seams to enhance fit, elongating it into shirtdresses, or rejiggering it entirely as a V-neck cardigan. The best thing about his not-so-basic basics? Their entry-level designer price points mean you might have something left over for one of his very special dresses.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Armand Limnander
• October 9, 2001

Michael Kors" sunny, low-key Celine collection was full of what he does best: pretty, practical summer staples that make an easy transition from the beach to a poolside soiree.

Though Kors" program notes talked about his Mediterranean inspiration, it was the graphic designs of "60s Scandinavian cult label Marimekko that was brought to mind by the designer"s large avocado-and-paprika sunflower-print jackets, coats and skirts. Kors interspersed his flower-power looks with breezy crochet shells, crepe jersey tank dresses and multistripe canvas shorts and shirts; rounding things out were flat sandals and a roomy tote. For cocktail hour there were snappy turquoise-, amethyst- and silver-beaded dresses that looked just as relaxed as the daywear.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Mark Holgate
• October 7, 2004

So it"s adieu to Michael Kors, and bonjour to Roberto Menichetti, who takes the helm of Celine for the first time for spring 2005, bringing with him a wildly different aesthetic. If the Celine woman, courtesy of Kors, projected the image of worldly traveler with a private jet, Menichetti"s heroine is shaping up to be the one designing the aerodynamics. There were no summer-weight furs, no jewels that looked like they"d been picked up during a few transcontinental jaunts, no precious exotic skins. Correction: There were a few of the latter, in the form of crocodile satchels worn like shoulder bags and tiny lizard purses sportily slung around the body.

The real change, of course, is that Celine has swapped Kors" American vision of sportswear for Menichetti"s European one. It means that casual and often flamboyant luxury has been replaced with a far more sober and experimental vision. Menichetti pretty much stripped everything down to a wardrobe of streamlined and slightly futuristic basics: A-line coats, cocoon skirts, and boxy jackets. All of this came in a palette that looked like it might have been created in a laboratory, with saturated shades of fuchsia, citrine yellow, and lapis blue—an effect heightened by digitally manipulated floral prints.

Perhaps that was as far as the experiment should have gone: No woman needs a striped sweater with an odd circular cutout on the back, or tricky pleating on a skirt, or strange, space-age headbands. Menichetti"s simplest offering—a white tank top and wide ivory herringbone tuxedo pants—is a far safer bet as a template for the new Celine.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Jenny Comita
• March 7, 2003

Wondering where the wild things are? The answer, at least this season, is on the runway at Celine.

Michael Kors showed sequined zebra-striped bustier dresses, giraffe spots on pony bags, silver crocodile miniskirts and jackets, mink boleros and dramatic over-the-ear bonnets in Saga fox fur. But if the prints and pelts were straight out of the wilderness, the collection was most definitely designed for the urban jungle. The silhouette was neat, slim and dangerously short, while the palette was almost entirely black and white, with plenty of Chrysler Building-at-sunset sparkle. The clothes had a tough big-city-after-dark edge, with sharp silver zippers snaking their way up the back of second-skin pants, chains hanging from otherwise ladylike structured handbags, and white leather coats shot through with grommets.

Has the Celine woman morphed into Debbie Harry circa 1981? Most definitely not. This was punk done for girls with clean hair and Birkin bags—the same sort of women who will appreciate Kors’s swingy Breakfast at Tiffany’s satin trench coats and ice-blue fox puffer jackets.

The uptown/downtown clash could be seen most clearly in the shoes: sky-high square-toe stilettos with oversize silver Pilgrim buckles, which Kors described as “ladylike from the front and nasty from the back.” “It’s all about contradiction,” he said of the collection. “It’s a good girl gone bad or a bad girl gone good. I’m still trying to figure out which.”Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/

Céline

• Sarah Mower
• October 6, 2005

Ivana Omazic, an unknown 32-year-old Croatian, is the latest designer charged with figuring out a raison d"être for Celine"s presence on the Paris runway. Admittedly, it"s a tricky task. In very recent memory, Michael Kors, with his humor and bounce, has passed through this way, followed by Roberto Menichetti, with his abstruse modernism. So this third debut needed to give a strong directive about just how an internationally resonant fashion collection could be constructed around a name that, back in the day, was mostly known as a conservative French lady"s source of handbags and everyday separates.

Omazic said she is inspired by that tradition. So what on earth was the audience supposed to think about the hot-orange dress, mohair crochet cardigan, and red floppy hat, worn with red kneesocks and high-heel sandals, that announced the opening of this show? (What to make, for that matter, of the fiery ball of Mars that was rotating at the end of the runway?) As far as could be detected, the "tradition" came later, in the canvas and tan leather-trimmed bags, the chain belts that circled cardigans, the cropped riding boots, and the box-pleated A-line skirts, some of which came with a chain detail slung below the waistband, center front.

But if that"s where the message lay, it was comprehensively drowned in a showing that included too much black, an overabundance of cut-out swimwear, and what seemed like endless reiterations of the tight-bodice, full-skirt dress that opened the show. Quite possibly, taken apart and seen on a rail, this collection will look far more attractive. But styled and presented like this, it just didn"t work.Read more: https://www.kalakendra.org/upcoming-events/