FASHION / THE NEW YORK SHOWS : The Attack of the Grungies
NEW YORK — The best light to shed on the New York spring fashion collections is first light. It comes at dawn, when visibility is still limited. And it holds out the hope that things will come into focus later on.
To see Christian Francis Roth start his show with a fashion video set to grunge band music was one sign of this new day dawning. After the video, Roth walked onto the runway, made of real grass, and tuned an electric guitar.
He didn’t really play the guitar, and AstroTurf is greener than the real thing. In fact, from his opening act to the end of his show, everything seemed like an experiment in illusion.
Or was it delusion?
Roth’s grunge-wear included thermal fabric jumpsuits, black construction boots, plaid shirts unbuttoned over striped T-shirts and knit caps with streamers sprouting from the crown.
“It’s a very bohemian message for an artistic, creative person,” he later said about the line. “These are very accessible clothes.”
There’s a junior-department feeling about these clothes, and Roth explained that they are from his lower-priced “Sub Roth” division (everything is under $500). He showed them along with more refined, expensive outfits, including chalk-stripe pants, a subtle check shirt and a quiet plaid vest.
But too much of the show relied on basic grungies, straight off the top. A rebel spirit is all well and good, but translating it to designer level requires more than the literal interpretation Roth gave this time. His show was like listening to Nirvana play head-banger music at a philharmonic concert.
Grunge got hold of Anna Sui, too. Silver moon boots, hot pants, crocheted vests to the ankle, military fatigues, bell-bottoms, bikinis. She tossed them all together for a hippie/grunge goulash.
Things got really scary when models with glitter-heavy eyelids and lips came down the runway in spider-web crocheted dresses over nothing but G-strings
(Investors take note: There is money to be made in that minuscule undergarment. There was hardly a spring show in which models didn’t expose every body part save the tiny area a G-string covers.)
Sui’s collection was saved by some flower-print granny dresses with Mother Hubbard hats and--for evening--velvet printed bed jackets over bell bottom pants. But they got lost amid the gimmicks.
It would be easy to write Sui off after a show like that. And it would be a mistake, in part because her last collection, for fall ‘92, started a fashion sensation.
Her swashbuckling hippie-pirate wear swept through fashion magazines and found its way into spring collections of some top-name New York designers. And the style inspired dozens of low-priced knock-offs.
In addition, Sui has set pricing trends, too. Most things in her collections are well under $500.
If the results didn’t work this time, her spring collection was certainly connected to what fashion is becoming: softer, more fanciful, more individualistic.
Happily, there is more to life than grunge. There are bugs. Byron Lars, an emerging New York talent, used bees and butterflies, mosquitoes and, yes, Manhattan roaches in his bug-hunt collection for spring.
Lars is a punster who once made a wedding dress inspired by a baseball jacket and often uses men’s shirt sleeves as belts on women’s dresses.
This season he showed safari sun dresses with patch pockets you could pack full of stuff. (Who needs implants?) His safari suit had a floor-length skirt, longer in back, for an oval silhouette that resembled a butterfly net.
This ecology awareness collection, shown to the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in the background, included cockroach brooches on jacket lapels, a nest-of-butterflies headdress and an evening outfit made of mosquito netting.
About the time Lars previewed his bug collection on Thursday, audiences were grateful to any designer who didn’t show grunge.
That made Louis Dell’Olio for Anne Klein popular. He focused on long, belted tunics over narrow pants for a relaxed look. His wide-leg slacks in ivory silk fell somewhere short of elephant leg proportion for a more flattering look. He showed them with waist nipping brown silk jackets for a fluid ‘40s feeling.
Calvin Klein did the tri-level proportion featured in several New York spring collections. North African inspired, it mixes lengths in an untypical way. Klein showed elongated jackets over mid-calf skirts over long, narrow pants, all cut from semi-sheer wools. He mixed light buff colors and used leather belts and crocheted skull caps for his leading accessories.
Nothing in this show looked quite right for the real world, which was disappointing. Klein’s last several collections have been particularly strong. If he is off-center in his women’s wear for spring, it could be because he’s focused more attention on other areas of his business: menswear, jeans and underwear.
Back to the hippie highlights: Donna Karan’s spring collection proves she understands the true meaning of the word. Ruffled poet’s shirts cascaded to knee length over ankle-grazing skirts. Long, fluid dresses, in ecru and navy print, went with enormous crinkle brim hats for a Stevie Nicks of the ‘90s effect.
For working women, Karan showed poet’s shirts with pantsuits. Her show was romantic, costume-y and in keeping with the moment.
As always, Isaac Mizrahi went beyond the moment. Yes, he showed white eyelet bell-bottoms with cropped leather T-shirts on models with oversize Afros. Yes, he had a see-through segment. His evening wear included sheer white bell-bottoms with glittering rhinestone belts and white lace underwear that showed.
But he set himself and his collection apart when he showed an entire lengthy set of clothes for working women and others who aren’t interested in costumes before cocktails.
Mizrahi captured the softer direction fashion is taking and applied it to the real world in a way other designers seemed to avoid.
Among the best looks were amply cut shirt jackets with fabric belts, relaxed pants suits in reverse prints of navy and ecru, kimono jackets and leather tops cropped just above the waist to wear with narrow skirts to just below the knee.
Not that Mizrahi single-handedly saved a category of dressing. But by featuring in his show what most designers seemed intent on disguising with special effects, he acknowledged a simple truth: The women who can afford New York designer labels are working hard for the money.
Coming Friday: Looking back at a month of designer fashion shows in Europe and New York, one major trend emerges: If the ‘80s were about structure and outfits, the ‘90s will be about flexibility and garments that are just thrown together. It’s the end of the power-trip look. Mary Rourke reports.
