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NEW YORK, United States — Concerned with all the figurative 'noise' surrounding the fashion show format and its calendar of late, designer Derek Lam crafted his own eloquent response via a series of salon shows atop the Greenwich Hotel, explaining each look himself as each model entered the penthouse living room.
Although no hint of Georgia O'Keefe's vibrant florals touched Lam's palette nor silhouette, it was the artist's raw feminine spirit that he said inspired this austere collection - one populated with poplin shirt dresses and balloon-sleeve blouses, slouchy pants and long, softly a-line skirts.
Nuancing the demure designs, textures like donut-shaped cotton embroideries, topstitched suede, and broderie anglaise lent an ethnic rub to his otherwise minimalist offer. A golfing check was a graphic clin d'oeil to Katherine Hepburn yet amongst other ideas, it edged closer to Phoebe Philo's recent train of thought at Céline. That fact alone saw Lam's own light shine brighter in the collection's more textured, craftier looks.
