NEW YORK — It is the 24th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, the morning after the political commentator Charlie Kirk was killed, and one of the first people you see as you enter Michael Kors’ show is a woman in a pink crushed velvet coat over a “Protect the Dolls” t-shirt. If there is ever a time to come together and cherish the dolls among us it is now, with the world seeming to be spinning out of control.
Kors knows this, too. He dresses the trans model Alex Consani in a single-shouldered sequinned frock, just one example of his easy and uncomplicated clothes this season — as if to say, don’t we have enough to worry about? The designer has lately been spending time in Morocco, which may account for the sarong skirts, balloon trousers and delightful caftan-esque silhouettes. Fringe cascades from handbags and, in one case, descends from the bottom half of a sleek dress. (Fringe will turn up everywhere this season, and if not exactly practical, it does add a bit of levity sorely needed at the moment.)
No such discernible vibe is in evidence at Veronica Leoni’s second outing for Calvin Klein, which is held at the Brand Foundation, a swanky art gallery in what was once an electrical substation on a tenement block in the East Village. Models descend a glass enclosed staircase sporting a hodgepodge of ideas, some fine — the apron dresses that open the show, the oversize trenches that could cover a multitude of sins — and some quite challenging, as in the giant pompoms dangling from a corset that would make the luckless wearer look like a dazed majorette.
At Rachel Scott’s Diotima, the through-line couldn’t be clearer. The designer is having a moment — in addition to her own house, she has just been named the creative director of Proenza Schouler, since its founders have flown across the ocean and are now set to unveil their first Loewe collection in Paris. In her inaugural runway show, Scott offers elevated versions of the crochet work she is known for — hooded openwork pullovers, lime balloon trousers, along with extravaganzas like a vast scarlet evening dress constructed of faux feathers.
Uneasy lies a head that wears the crown of a beloved deceased designer: IB Kamara faces the challenge of having inherited the creative helm of Off-White from the late Virgil Abloh. His show is held on the roof of a high school on the Lower East Side in broad daylight, and perhaps sunlight is not the best disinfectant in this case — some of these notions would be better viewed in the sepulchral light of a night club. Court jester colours swirl around leggings; many of the gauzy dresses sport train-like tails, and one can imagine an inebriated young lady, sick of tripping over this thing as the evening wears on, borrowing a pair of scissors from the bartender.
And speaking of night life: the Day of the Locust chaos seems to be the point at Alexander Wang, who shows in a former beaux arts bank on the Bowery that the Wang family recently purchased for $9.5 million. (They plan to transform it into a museum.) Some guests are seated at little tables with Mah Jong sets and champagne (was this reporter booted at the last minute from this plum spot to accommodate Cardi B’s seven-year-old daughter?) Other journalists are crouched on the floor during the interminable wait before the show begins. It is well after 10 by the time the piano version of “Clubbed to Death” comes over the loudspeakers, and no one is in a very good mood. When the clothes finally emerge, they included nicely tailored items cut to be no longer than a t-shirt and low-slung skirts so brief they could get the wearer kicked off a plane. If seized by a sudden bout of modesty, a white poncho, winningly floppy, is also on hand. Some of the models carry metal briefcases, implying that they are off to work — maybe they are on the board of OnlyFans?
The Wang show is entitled “The Matriarch” and is touted as a tribute to the designer’s mother, but that lady might well prefer the calmer offerings at Altuzarra. Paying no attention to the edict that these are meant to be spring collections, a faux fur jacket sports furry tail fringe, but there are also warm weather dresses embellished with what turn out to be 3-D flowers, and oh look: more balloon trousers! It may not be reinventing the wheel, but you cannot deny the lure of a gossamer wedding gown whose delicate vintage aura might have appealed to the hapless Gilded Age “Dollar Princess” Gladys Russell.
Oh Gladys! If only she had been born over a century later, she could have thrown off the yoke of her monstrous nouveau riche mom and married the boho guy — or gal — she loved, in one of the charming frocks proposed by Hillary Taymour at Collina Strada. The goofy flourishes of her earlier collections — the animal tails; the vegetables — have thankfully given way to satin lingerie dresses with puffy sleeves, slippery super-slouchy trousers, and dramatic hipster Renaissance gowns sent out in pairs — one black, one white, which Taymour describes as walking with your shadow.
With dark shadows threatening to overwhelm the most valiant gleams of light, can you blame a desperate citizenry for retreating into pretty-land? At Ashlyn, there are discrete ballet flourishes; at Meruert Tolegen, beautifully wrought lacing lends an air of Victoriana. Anna Sui, the godmother of the unironic proto-pretty movement, studs her front row with her loyal gang: Marc Jacobs, Sofia Coppola, Karen Elson and the legendary Zandra Rhodes, deep in conversation with Vera Wang. (Even the Warhol superstar Baby Jane Holzer is in the house, clutching a baby Birkin.) Languid slip dresses in a mélange of pale prints, decorated jeans, and whimsical cartoon alligator handbags argue that you best be really young to drift around in these ensembles.
The intended client for Coach is youthful as well — so callow they cannot remember earlier incarnations of these distressed hole-ridden sweaters and artfully-sloppy pants ambling down a runway in a pier on the East River. The best things are the dresses photo-printed with the night sky of various American cities — New York; Seattle — the locales helpfully indicated on the top of the garments. Sometimes these are covered by sheer sleeveless layers that are enhanced with various patterns, including, in one poignant case, shooting stars.
Then again, sometimes you seek refuge in chic sobriety. The models at Khaite are charged with negotiating a catwalk floating over a reflecting pool at the center of a stage at Hudson Yards. As ever, this popular brand — an aesthetic rival of The Row — is best when it keeps it relatively simple. Forget the bunched tulle meandering over bodices, and opt instead for the leather trousers, the sheer blouse sporting handcrafted flowers, the cropped denim pants, or even the polka dot hostess skirt.
Tory Burch manages to combine the serious — those duchesse satin pleated skirt suits, because you have an actual job! — and the sublime — beaded flapper dresses and a bubble-gum pink dancing frock because, despite it all, maybe one last party? Her standout collection is held in the lavish former headquarters of the hundred-year-old Williamsburg Savings Bank, still gracing the Brooklyn skyline with its famous clock tower, a site more ornate, more splendiferous, than anything seen on a runway this week.
Or maybe not. In its own way, Luar argues for its fierce brand of take-no-prisoners glamour. The lateness of the hour rivals the start of the Wang show — no Madonna or Beyoncé in the house this time, we are waiting for Dennis Rodman, Ice Spice and Latto. When it finally begins, the show presents a polished version of the temptations that the designer is famous for. The stunning opener features a gleaming black reefer; beading bubbles up from a cropped leather jacket. Feathers burst from a shimmery bustier; they wave from lacquered coifs over sheer leotards. As the ensembles emerge, a recording of a long spoken-word poem by Aja Monet booms. The last line of the work is “True Joy Has Always Been Justice” — a reminder that beyond this dreamworld of runways and catwalks, the stakes could not be higher.
