Fall Fashion 2007
By Catherine Berlin
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unflattering clothes
I do not like everything in Nan Kempner’s closet.
There. I’ve said it. May the ghost of Diane Vreeland come a-haunting. I accept that Anna Wintour’s dark shades shall never glance my way. I do not care. The truth has been churning inside me since I stood in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum of Art viewing the Costume Institute’s installation, Nan Kempner: American Chic. Vreeland and Wintour, former and current editors of American Vogue, each have a connection, albeit attenuated. Wintour is an Honorary Trustee of the Met and chairs benefits for the Institute. Vreeland’s cruel talent for organizing according to hyperbole earned her the quote on the exhibition wall, “There are no chic women in America. The one exception is Nan Kempner.” Babe Paley, Jackie O., and Eleanor Lambert are likely still spinning from that one.
Nan Kempner was a wealthy Manhattan wife and mother of three, part of a circle Women’s Wear Daily called “The Cat Pack. ” Told by her father, “You’ll never make it on your face, so you’d better be interesting,” Kempner became engaging enough during her life to, near the end of it, be invited by Nancy Reagan to the former President’s funeral.
She also had a self-deprecating style, tossing boomerang disses from “I wouldn’t miss the opening of an door,” to “I don’t need another dress, I need another body,” which should have come as no surprise. As a child it was not just her face that had concerned her parents. When she was twelve, they sent her to a diet doctor who started her on lettuce-as-bread sandwiches. She would learn to supplement this diet by looking at photographs of richer foods and smoking cigarettes.
Kempner married the rich grandson of the founder of today’s Loeb Partners Corp. Over the years Kempner would raise her family and travel between winters in Gstaad, couture shows in Paris and Milan, a beach house in the Bahamas, holidays with the de la Rentas in Santo Domingo, and month-long respites at the Cipriani hotel in Venice. Described by many as kind, gracious, and inviting, she was hard on herself and equally demanding of others. Together with best friend Pat Buckley (married to William F.), she helped raise seventy-five million for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. Along the way she acquired a New York penthouse full of clothes.
Fashion editor pets dressed Kempner, designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel. Valentino thought that Nan looked so wonderful in his clothes, “because she has a body like a hanger.” Imagine Lauren Bacall, stretched even leaner, with a stronger nose and jaw. Kempner liked the masculine cut of a Saint Laurent suit—she would come to own over 200 of them—and she was one of his top American patrons. In fact, such was her obsession with top designers and their creations that the London Daily Telegraph suggested that it was her purchases during her forties and fifties that kept couture afloat during its recessionary eighties and nineties.
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From the Maticevski collection.
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Yet peering through the glass that separated the gawker from the gowns at the Institute, some of the strappings and cuts on the YSL and Madame Grès’ dresses were confounding, striking discord instead of grace with my mind’s eye’s image of Kempner’s thin, but still very female body. I admit I sighed over much of her skiwear and coat collection. But a stunning red evening number by Valentino that everyone adored looked awful on her, if the photos of her in it are an accurate reflection of either Kempner or the gown. There seemed no connect between the woman and the dress. Bob-nosed, heart-shaped-face Victoria Principal maybe; not Nan.
She was, they should have seen, more than just a hanger. Kempner’s sense of spirit and style put everyone to shame, certainly, and as she got older, she still looked innovative and together. But sometimes she would look harsh or tired, and neither she nor the designers seemed to address this. Then I came across a photograph where, instead of her usual dark, angular neckline, an abrupt collar, or a starkly contrasting pattern, Kempner was in a lightweight, pale, flower-patterned top that gently rested across her décolleté. It seemed more schmatte than high end, and she looked absolutely lovely. I searched all over for another image of the top only to discover that it was a Valentino dress with a deeply plunging neckline. The portion of the photograph I had seen showed her chest covered by a scarf of the same material. But the point is, what I saw worked. She was seventy-three years old. She looked fresh and delicious. With all that money, all that patronage, and all the style talent in the world, why couldn’t everybody figure out how to do that for her more often?
For me, I took this all as a lesson to promise to learn to look in the mirror again. A label and cut and material are important, but if it pulls the color from my face or emphasizes dark circles, if it doesn’t make me smile from ear to ear, I am just going to have to learn to put it back on the rack.
What to look for in fall 2007
By William C. Altreuter and Catherine Berlin
In The Devil Wears Prada, the Anna Wintour-ish character lectures her anti-fashion assistant:
“What you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. ”
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From Dragana Ognjenovic.
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So we get distracted.
“I think that was Andy Roddick!”
“That was not Andy Roddick. ”
“But it looks a like him, kind of, in disguise, and the PR contact told him to have a good season.”
“Roddick is twice his size and ‘season’ means ‘clothes selling season.’”
So distracted.
Few of the colors were spot-on primary, but they were certainly luscious, with azure, peacock (a lighter shade of cerulean), and cobalt blue, red-violet and royal purple, and tangerine, coral-red, and scarlet. Rich browns, weaker grays, and oh-so-critical black proved the basics rule, with much ado about cool, cool metallics. As for style, it was a week of contrasts, whether it was a sense of internal upheaval caused by going from an Eddie-Bauerish Lacoste show on to the finely detailed Maticevski collection, or the initial visual shock of seeing two independent eclectic looks pulled into one line, such as Sass & Bide’s decision to marry Mary Poppins with baby doll chic. It was also a week of high-waisted pants, plaids, and checks, and oversized, chunky sweaters. Some of those sweaters, like one we spotted at the Cynthia Steffe show, may not do any body justice, what with the cardigan V and wide expanse, but the lustrous material soothingly whispers, “This is where you wanna be next winter.”
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From Loris Diran.
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As we studied the Maticevski collection, we quickly realized that watching the garment walk away was as fulfilling as watching it approach. Australian Toni Maticevski, who worked at Donna Karan and Cerruti before launching his own label, is a bit obsessive with his needle and thread, and everyone benefits. He makes a simple adjustment to a lapel, and suddenly you can feel your affection spike for the long swing coat. We also couldn’t help but think Nancy Drew meets Marlene Dietrich and how completely entertaining it would be to work at putting that combination together next fall. “Falling in Love Again” aired during the clothing parade.
His entire collection seemed bathed in the color of chocolate, in the luxurious fabrics for which Maticevski is known. The palette had two notable exceptions, a daffodil padded skirt and jacket and a padded orange sherbet dress, sherbet as in right down to the shape of the dessert scoop. The padded outfits were visually stimulating, with material that loop-cascaded off the models’ shoulders like a waterfall. We loved them for the pure art of it all and the color release. As for application, well, we can imagine maybe an outdoor wedding in January; they would come in handy then. But practically speaking, getting around the drink table later at the inside reception just screams disaster.
Sass & Bide
The Australians came up hot again, with Sass & Bide carrying a heady post-show undercurrent. Two women designers, neither of whom is named Sass or Bide, presented their “Lovehawk Season” promoted as relaxed luxury and created by adding vintage embellishments to comfortable silhouettes. That’s what they say. We still say Mary Poppins meets last spring’s empire waists and short lengths. Although the line brings all sorts of things to mind, from Script Ohio drum majorettes to Bowling for Dollars, we see the point. We know that if we were the kind of people who had a lot of clothes, say more than five tops and two pair of jeans, we mean lots, then we would also know that it can be kind of difficult to find something to wear that is different than everything else, yet attractive and edgy. That is exactly what these two create.
Gustavo Arango
There are occasions during the show when an inability to feel and touch, the fact that we may get stuck six hundred miles back on the photographers’ riser, becomes a real hindrance. We ran to Gustavo Arango’s show, wickedly late, not realizing that it, as with many of the shows, was not being held at the Bryant Park main location. We rushed in, the lights dimmed, the music started and then there they all were, one prom dress after another. One New York Times fashion guru was musing over whether Marc Jacobs—who by his astounding palette alone beat every other designer in the show—was getting a little bored with high fashion, and people around us were applauding prom dresses. We began to wonder if we were missing the magic. We found that magic later in our photographs. He handles silk, chiffon, and organza as if they were cotton, and focuses on fine details in the trimming. Plus, he lit up the place. No doom and gloom; no winter solstice sobriety. We also discovered that his models’ make-up artists and hairdressers did an outstanding job of creating a dreamy, otherworldly suggestion in a very harshly lit room that sees more conference chairs than runway tables during the year.
In addition to the glamorous evening attire, Arango’s designs demonstrated a few other trends we spotted in other shows as well: elegance in daytime dressing, the bell sleeve and flare leg of the seventies, and the return of long gloves. The metallic pants and top and the orange dress are outfits that can be worn by any person at any age.
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From Gustavo Arango.
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Loris Diran, who is of French-Armenian descent, earned his Fine Arts degree from NYU before going to work at Versace, Claude Montana, and Chanel. His designs prove something we all know: true class is sexy and ageless. For example, his smoke print chiffon ruffle blouse with autumn grey boucle wrap skirt themed strength through subtlety. He produced a black boucle coat with white piping that looked like it should be the Northern intelligentsia’s signature winter coat. A youthful silk chiffon, empire-waisted dress with a cropped wool jacket offered a shot of chic to the younger crowd. His backless satin full-sleeved blouse with full crepe wool pant brought applause from all. And he pulled off a rare coup in the suit world with his cream colored wool suit with silk print blouse: a novel design that works.
At the end of the show, two women in their sixties came up to us in the photography ring and asked questions about where to buy. It’s not just us. They got it, too. With the right clothes, young women can acquire the gravitas that youth often denies them, and older women can avoid that cloak of invisibility that we never order but somehow seems to show up in our closet one year.
Cabbeen
We were ready to strangle the Cabbeen models. We know they are guys and they are supposed to be edgy, angry, “I-don’t-owe-you-and-your-traditions won’t-imprison-me” young guys. But I doubt each was told to walk to the end of the runway and, like a pouty eleven-year-old, thwop, thwop, thwop with heavy feet through the turn before the photographers could get a chance to snap them.
It doesn’t matter. We could still see the clothes, and the British/Cowboy/Guangzhou fusion was worth the frustration. This designer will hit in this country, what with flowers and Chinese flags on lapels, preppy striped ties, fur-collared jean jackets, and intriquing variations on trousers. Why? Well, plenty is familiar (down jackets, plaid shirts, work boots), and that which is unfamiliar, is at least authentic. Our point is that it is not Holister stamping Asian-ish flower prints into hoodies here. Someone from China is integrating authentic Chinese patterns, like pink cherry-blossom embroidery, into the design matrix and through that authenticity, people will connect.
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From Alice Roi.
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Kati Stern was a musical prodigy at four, won prestigious fashion awards, then turned her energies to architecture and interior design. The European-born designer returned to fashion, bought a home in Venice, and lucky us. She designs under her own label, Venexiana. Her pieces are all glamour and luxury and forties style revisited, done in a way that mixes smarts and power with beauty, like a Lois Lane/Katharine Graham/Sharon Stone amalgamation. The clothing looked as strong and in control as the women who wore them on the runway.
Stern also had the amazingly good taste to invite us to her after party, But as we had been standing, shooting, and waiting in line for fourteen hours that day, we decided to take our old weary bodies to a garment district Irish pub instead. Instead of disco music and champagne, we drank drafts and watched the 1969 Superbowl III, where Joe Namath’s New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts.
Dragana Ognjenovic
This Serbian designer brings something very special and critical to a winter collection: simplicity. Don’t get us wrong. We love the fanciful and the lively. We can appreciate bright patterns and fussy materials. But the reality of a winter in our region means that there is not always time or the logistics for frills. Sometimes we get up in the morning and we reach for something that is uncomplicated and clean, something rich and simple, something that is in stark contrast to the white around us, or something that allows us to blend in to all the darkness around us. Maybe our psyche demands what Ognjenovic so beautifully and monochromatically puts together. On the other hand, maybe we want to be able to grab something nice and fast to put on so we have more time to shovel and wait in traffic. M-a-y-b-e we have just decided that the only color we are ever going to wear again is black.
If you want your dressing to take on a more European look, this is an excellent collection to study. In a European line, the cut will often follow the silhouette. You will see a sophistication born of exactitude, precision, and austerity. Put another way, the lines are clean. This is true whether we are talking Italian, Danish, or Serbian. This is true even when humor is being injected into a piece, as is often done. Ognjenovic, as all designers, uses a number of familiar influences. In this season’s offerings we noticed fifties cocktail dress neckline to nineties trench coat to layered tees to kimono to puff skirt to sweat shirt. The real fun was watching for it, and then seeing how she blended it into a twenty-first century sophistication. In black.
Alice Roi to the rescue
By Catherine Berlin
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Also from Alice Roi.
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First the good. There are three beautiful outfits in the top image accompanying this article. As for the outft on the left, it may not be possible to more adeptly design a separates combination that says “daring, luxurious, and controlled,” than Ms. Roi does here. Although the white around the waist could be visually thickening, it helps that the sweater has a band to pull the actual bulk in. The rich wool material of the skirt enhances the drape, a structural design that does not always work. The knit dress in the middle of the image is a perfect way to look warm, offset one’s hips, and be sexy without looking, well, trashy. That is a lot of work for one dress, but this one looks up for the challenge. The sweater dress on the right helps give volume to those who need it on the lower half. It is also the kind of dress that can be worn for several winter seasons, as it is based on a design classic. It can be updated every year by different jewelry or scarves.
The outfits in the image at right, however, don’t work as well. Although I initially loved the toggles and other finishing on the coat on the left, the shoulder insets narrow the upper body. The small, precise collar looks pinching—not helpful for a neck that has made it through more than four decades. If the design had actually been carried out further over the shoulder (think caplet from Madeline’s blue coat), this could have been a handsome piece.
The middle outfit lost me on an interstate exchange somewhere. The skirt has potential, but I can’t break my eyes away from the fringe. There is a reason that guys will wear those western sheepskin jackets with fringe aplenty; it’s because the fringe cuts across the chest and out at an angle to the shoulders and makes the cowboys look even bigger and tougher. Here, it looks more like a fringe necklace, and it shrinks the chest. Or maybe it’s the fringe in relation to the collar, which reminds me of an officer’s cap that wants to also be a scarf. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s just too complicated to look at.
The audience loved the black top with the plaid skirt. I didn’t. And it’s not a plaid aversion on my part, either. The half of me that is Scot knows its clan pattern and gets goose bumps at the sound of a bagpipe, a fact I will deny if you mention it to anyone. But this skirt is an example of what happens if plaid is allowed to flounce and bubble, something plaid—especially in a super-sized-pattern—does not do well. If what one wants is a skirt that walks into a room all its own, talking and carrying on with friends and colleagues, demanding attention from all the women, scaring the men away, and inviting comments on how wonderful it is to have big plaid prints again, well, then this is the skirt to own. The wearer will never get a word in edgewise.
William C. Altreuter and Catherine Berlin are attorneys living in Buffalo. This is their second Fashion Week report for Spree.
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