The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Fashion Week’s eight-day whirl wrapped on Thursday with some of the design world’s biggest names showing on the runways.
Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs all presented on Thursday, as the morning-to-night introduction of the spring 2015 collections featuring shows by approximately 200 designers came to a close.
Among the highlights:
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MARC JACOBS FINISHES BIG
With a Barbie-pink house and matching plush carpeting set up in an armory, Marc Jacobs closed New York Fashion Week on Thursday with models in military outfits and a computerized voice piped through Beats by Dr. Dre at every seat that spoke of a slower, quieter life.
And Jacobs threw in some blinged-out wooden slides (remember Dr. Scholl’s Exercise Sandals?) and a few shiny short dresses with conveniently large pockets apropos of, well, who really knows since he’s Marc Jacobs and he can do what he wants and didn’t explain himself in his notes.
On his runway, where Kendall Jenner was among his walkers, Jacobs started with military suits in cropped pants and short dresses of olive green, khaki and marine blue. He moved through to slouchy pants, dresses and jumpsuits bejeweled with large ovals in softer tons that included cream, brown and jewel-tone blue.
The ovals were also used all over some wispy, long sleeve, short-collar dresses.
A few heavier dresses could be snatched straight out of the store in forgiving shapes that were belted in olive and a green-blue. So could some long-collar dresses — still military inspired — that were widely pleated in light gray and taupe.
–Leanne Italie
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CALVIN KLEIN EMBRACES CURVES
Classic and sophisticated, the spring collection from Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein moved fluidly in papyrus white sleeveless dresses and read and blue leather on Thursday, the final day of New York Fashion Week.
Save a bit of patchwork and silver metallic embroidery, the clothes were urban chic, either daintily belted or swinging free.
Costa said in a backstage interview after the show that he wanted the female body front and center.
“Making the body a little more exposed in a way, you know, giving the woman a little more curve, which I love. I’ve never done a silhouette like that,” he said. “So we have fluted skirts, really beautiful engineered knits creating incredible shapes under tanks tops. It was fun to play with that.”
In the front row were Sarah Jessica Parker and Rooney Mara, along with industry heavyweights that included Anna Wintour.
–Leanne Italie
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RALPH LAUREN TAKES A FASHION SAFARI
If you’re the woman who savors a luxurious candlelit dinner while on safari — or maybe just wants to channel a safari while at a dinner party closer to home — Ralph Lauren hears you.
The designer’s spring 2015 collection was heavy on khakis, safari jackets and cargo pants, and played with the notion of safari as it moved into evening wear, too.
Lauren described the collection as “about an exotic kind of luxury, the spirit of a romantic safari emboldened by luminous colors played against the heritage of pure khakis in sleek and modern shapes. “
And his final item was the starkest example: a sage green silk taffeta evening dress, which looked like a safari jacket on top, only with a skirt billowing out like an evening gown on the bottom.
Lauren’s show, which always comes on the final day of Fashion Week, is one of the highest-profile as well. In the front row Thursday was actress Julianne Moore, a Lauren fan.
“Oh my gosh — what’s not to love?” the actress said. “I mean classic, American style. When I first moved to New York City, the Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue was the first one I went to, I used to wander around and wish I could afford the things that were there! “
–Jocelyn Noveck and Gina Abdy
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SNAKES ON A RUNWAY AT PROENZA SCHOULER
Designers Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough — the duo known as Proenza Schouler — love contrasts.
Proenza’s runway on Wednesday featured their usual inventive uses of fabric and texture, especially in leather and in knitwear, in ultra-modern, sophisticated pieces.
“We’re really attracted to leather, especially for spring, so we wanted to perforate the leather and make it almost sheer — like the sheerness of chiffon,” said Hernandez in a backstage interview. Some of the most striking designs were in what they called a “leather crochet” — leather, but almost diaphanous.
The duo also used python, in belts and in all kinds of trim, in various colors: blue, black and white, and most strikingly, orange, in a coat. “We always like a bit of animal, a bit of something savage,” McCollough said.
The show began with more buttoned-up silhouettes, with long-sleeved dresses buttoned to the neck, roomy coats, and jackets with hoods. As it progressed, the shapes started dissolving. In the end, dresses appeared with long fringes, as if, well, deconstructed.
Hernandez said the duo’s creative inspiration this time was “the ideas of classic American sportswear, taking those ideas and filtering them through our vision, so in the end they’re a little more abstract, I guess a little more twisted than real classics.”
–Jocelyn Noveck
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