2014 Resort

 

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez nabbed the CFDA's Designer of the Year award on Monday night. For the third time in five years! But you won't catch this duo lying down on the job. At their Resort presentation today they were talking about changing their process. "Designers have become obsessed with heavy clothes," they said, chalking up the fixation on structure to the importance of static online imagery. "We wanted to let the clothes move." Going forward, the plan is to do less sketching (as has been their habit for the past decade) and more draping.

For Resort, a sunburst accordion-pleated skirt in a color-blocked cloque seersucker and a draped, A-line silk T-shirt top exemplified this newfound interest in movement, even if the round-shoulder jacket that topped them was a callback to Fall. Where last season had a ladylike politesse, the mood here felt looser, which is very much in keeping with the general direction of the collections this week so far. Men's pants slouched from the hip bones and pooled at the ankles. The skirt on their de rigueur skirt suit was emphatically A-line, where it would've tapered in the past. And an evening dress (beaded and sack-shaped vaguely à la the twenties) peeked imperfectly several inches below the hem of a zigzag tweed cocoon coat.

A pair of draped little black dresses offered a preview of Spring. They didn't hew to the same relaxed lines, but even if they were more rigorous in their fit, they still had that ineffable Proenza Schouler cool.

2014 Resort

 

 

Hard-edged glamour was Jason Wu's message last season. Like other designers we've seen this week, he's loosened things up considerably for Resort, elongating hems to below the knee and taking the accent off a nipped waist. His recent protestations about a dark side notwithstanding, the new lighter mood is a good fit for Wu.

Despite the high level of craft that went into a sleeveless dress made from basket-weave tweed and duchesse satin connected by beaded black chiffon palm leaves, it came off as quite effortless. "I wanted to do tropical, but as shadows," he said. It was likewise nice to see him reimagine his best-selling couture sweatshirt; this time around, it came in black with a satin back and a matching satin triangle below its crew neck, or with an embroidered tulle overlay. If Wu leaned too heavily on midriff-baring tops, he's not the only one to do so this season. They've begun to feel like a cliché, but he made up for it with some chicly practical outerwear, including a khaki toggle coat with a deep band of black leather at the hem, and a patent suede coat the same shade of green as the wallpaper at Indochine, one of his favorite haunts. Maybe the best look in the collection was a denim skirtsuit that he pointed out wasn't really denim at all but blue silk with a contrasting silk lining. "Nobody comes to me for a basic denim jacket," he said. In keeping with this notion, he amped up the drama for evening, showing his first formal ball gowns in a while. Kerry Washington nabbed the yellow one for the CFDAs earlier this week.

2014 Resort

 

 Alexander Wang has built a call-and-response system between his runway shows and his pre-collections. Fall was about big volumes and roundness. And so, as he said in his showroom this morning, Resort is "about deflating those proportions and flattening the structures." Pleating and darts were his two preoccupations. That sounds like dry, technical stuff, but the new lineup showed off his famous retail savvy. Low-slung, baggy leather pants, a leather cheerleader miniskirt with asymmetrical darts, and a leather dress with batwing sleeves, the results of a pattern cut on the circle, were all instant wardrobe refreshers. Vacuum-pressed pleating at the back of an elongated blazer and the nipped waist of a keyhole-front smock dress were subtler interpretations of the theme. In Wang's world, they qualify as basics.

The big surprise here was the color pink. If it's ever appeared in an Alexander Wang collection, we don't remember it. There were a lot of pastels on the racks, too. "I wanted something sweet but almost saccharine, synthetic-feeling," he said, explaining that candy wrappers were a reference point for the collection's metallic Lurex knits. At this point, the sweatshirt isn't so much a closet refresher as it is a staple. Wang kept his fresh by weaving Lurex with cellophane. He called its spongy texture a mousse knit.

2014 Resort

 

 Trust Alber Elbaz to add a bit of levity to a full day of Resort appointments. Slipping behind a desk at his Lanvin presentation this morning, he said, "I'm going to talk about lifestyle, because I heard that lifestyle brands are doing really well." Then he described typical moments in his clients' lives and the perfect Lanvin look for each. "Let's say you're on a yacht with your husband's friends and all they talk about is money," he began, and out came a draped and ruched silver stretch lamé minidress. Or "you're going to your aunt's funeral, but she left you everything." Including this fabulous multicolor glazed python trench! There were outfits for a job interview (black skirtsuit with loafer) and your first day on the job (fuchsia pantsuit and matching blouse), for your second dream wedding (a multilayer tulle confection with full skirts) and an appointment with your ex and his divorce lawyer (an embroidered gold brocade shift).

Elbaz took a wide-ranging approach to his new Resort collection, as he did for Fall. Given the season—clothes in stores for months before they go on sale, etc., etc.—its diversity will be a plus. The abundance of flats, even in one case a pair of holographic sneakers worn with a draped jersey dress, emphasized the lineup's carefree vibe. It was an attitude that was accentuated by the stretch neoprene that he said was developed by a bra company. Elbaz used it for all sorts of pieces, including a traffic-stopping red cocktail dress that, as he said, "hides all kinds of things, and shows off everything else." Who doesn't want that kind of lift?

2014 Resort

 

 Clare Waight Keller wears the pants. That's not a feminist bromide; it's a sartorial fact. Even at the Met Gala last year, she opted for trousers. They've always been part of her vision for Chloé, but they've rarely seemed as front and center as they did today. And now's the time. Waight Keller has been at the label for a few revolutions of the fashion cycle: More than ever, the shots are hers to call. "It's the new Chloé proportion," she said, definitively, after her mini presentation today. "It's really my handwriting." The fluffed-up volume, the soft layers, the larger pants and cropped tops. "It's easy for me to wear," she said. "I'm not a supermodel proportion, and it's obviously bringing a versatility to other women as well."

The pants came in a few variations for this collection—a high-waisted, floppy version in Super 120s men's suiting wool; a cropped style with folded pleats—but despite the fashion quotient, they had what Waight Keller called her "barefoot attitude." The proportions are meant to be relaxed—so relaxed you can wear them with flats. To back it up, Waight Keller showed flats: neoprene slides like glorified shower shoes with a gleaming gold band, and a flat sandal whose gold ankle fastener is modeled on the cuffs that tether surfers to their boards.

There were great bits throughout, like a sweatshirt inlaid with guipure lace and the layered "trenches" that separate into gilet and bolero. There were feminine dresses too, even if, on closer inspection, most had the pull-on ease of T-shirts. If you were looking to nitpick, you might say that the odd piece here or there had echoes of others' work. But on the whole, and especially in those trouser looks, the collection bore Waight Keller's own firm stamp. As if to christen that occasion properly, she introduced a floppy new bag, and called it the Clare.

2014 Resort

 

 The most striking image of Alexander McQueen's Fall collection was the gilded, caged face. You could read a book into that, just like you could interpret McQueen's Resort collection as a release for Sarah Burton. There was something so free and organic about the clothing and accessories that it was almost as though Burton had become a lady of the canyon…Laurel Canyon, that is. Early on in the genesis of the collection, Corinne Day's photos of Kate Moss in an American Indian headdress had caught someone's eye. Carefree, vibrant youth—that was the spirit Burton sought. The fact that she managed to wire it to a classic McQueen trope like Travis Banton's hyper-waisted 1930s silhouette was a pretty accurate gauge of how effectively she has twisted the signatures she inherited.

It was actually the forties that snared Burton's imagination, particularly the clothes that working women wore while their men were at war. Collections often start somewhere like that and then career off somewhere else, and this one was no exception. Still, the little dresses in a canvas cotton with their dungaree straps and unfinished seams had a sturdy Rosie the Riveter feel. Even so, under the canvas skirt were seven layers of broderie anglaise petticoats. This will always be the strange, effortful world of McQueen, where denims are patchworked together from 11 different washes and every single crocheted, brocaded, floral-ed, butterflied, broderie anglaise-ed scrap in a patchworked evening dress has been specially created. Meaning that, for Burton, release comes one look at a time.

Oh well, never mind that, because the result let the sunshine in. When you say forties and functional, the American designer Claire McCardell springs to mind, and there were echoes: a drawstring neckline on an embossed peasant top, or a prettily bowed fichu neckline. But McCardell or no, there was a real flavor of Americana in the collection. A nubuck calfskin dress—patchworked, embossed, whipstitched—felt like the product of an artisanal studio in the bowels of the Hollywood Hills. So did the tapestry-effect trousers and crocheted keyhole gown. The suede saddlebag styled as a clutch was the perfect accessory. If this was literally a new frontier for McQueen, it was—as all frontiers should be—full of promise.

2014 Resort

 

 "Who has the time to go on vacation anymore?" wondered Phillip Lim in his studio. Not him. With stores to open around the world, new locations to scout, ad campaigns to shoot, and more, he isn't the unplug-and-unwind type. Neither, he finds, is his customer. So he conceived his Resort collection as one to wear as you play while you work, or work while you play. The modern woman, Lim reasons, combines both.

Once, the Lim girl played all day. But customers grow up, as brands do, and the women who first fell for the label in their twenties are now, as it chugs toward its tenth year in business, in their thirties. The transition from youth to maturity is one that's preoccupied the designer of late. "It's been such a watershed past year," he said. "I'm finally seeing a light and moving away from the sophomore blues." He spoke of streamlining his collection, refining past hits. Proportions were abbreviated and widened, but the aggressive styling Lim has favored in the past was tempered somewhat. There's still plenty of pop—those sherbet-hued laser-cut scuba leathers, the fuzzy pom-pom "dandelions" covering a bomber jacket—but to better effect. A few splattery prints, and one jokey one with farm animals, suggested last gasps of youth yet. But Lim has become a force to be reckoned with. He's got an international empire, and this week he won a CFDA Award for the second year running, this time for accessories. As if on cue, Resort features the debut of a backpack version of his hit Pashli bag. It could be the next best seller. That ought to buy him a few days' vacation.

2014 Resort

 

"A clever remix" was how design director Elizabeth Giardina described the new 10 Crosby Derek Lam collection, which centered on the ideas of elevated sweatshirt dressing and rounded silhouettes. The opening outfit aptly illustrated the casually elegant mood. Instead of doing the sporty pullover and relaxed trousers in standard terry or neoprene, which we've seen ad nauseam the past few seasons, they were cut from a sturdy double crepe that gave them an effortless sophistication—particularly when shown in head-to-toe white. "We wanted to treat wovens like they were jersey," said Giardina. Elsewhere, they treated jersey like it was a woven, adding fancy French seams to slub T-shirts.

Giardina took the edge off tailored blazers with soft, dropped shoulders, and updated comfortable track pants in supple blush-pink leather. Polka dots were used as a motif throughout and neatly tied in with the curved shapes. They came sliced and diced on a pair of silk pants and flocked on sheer blouses. Laid-back evening looks like a tuxedo jumpsuit with a fluttering semicircular shirttail completed the collection. 

Evening dress-

Evening dresses inspired by NY city scapes and Chrysler building-