New York is saturated in style

By Ginia Bellafante
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004, Page 16

Every so often during the runway collections, I am forced to wonder exactly what would have become of the world if Miuccia Prada had pursued her studies in political science instead of building a fashion house now virtually unchecked in its aesthetic

imperialism.

Perhaps she would be leading a quiet life as a visiting professor at Georgetown University. Regardless of how that that kind of professional life would have played out, it is reasonable to propose that consumers in today's global luxury marketplace would be spending most of their time naked -- because they would have nothing to wear.

It is not just the mall-based chains who have immersed themselves in the Prada style. So have a whole slew of high-end competitors, a reality that seemed to crystallize at Behnaz Sarafpour's show at Tiffany and Co last Sunday morning. When Sarafpour came out to take her bow, she even comported herself in the way of the "Really I must get back to my Russian novel now" Milanese designer.

One of the nearly 179 shows causing neck strain during Fashion Week in New York. PHOTOS: NY TIMES

Featured in the window of Club Monaco, just down the block, was the look of sophisticated tie-dyed clothing that Prada has recently popularized. This seemed fitting. What did not, though, was the appearance of subtle tie-dyed patterns on full matronly dresses and skirts, in the Prada manner, on Sarafpour's runway a short while later. That look did not make up the entirety of her collection. Sarafpour veered away from it with lean-lined dresses trimmed with pearl fringes and chinoiserie -- chinoiserie having been the cornerstone of the Prada ethos just a little over a year ago. Fashion itself would barely exist in these times without recycling. But one expects designers to plumb further back into history than nine months ago.

Donna Karan's show for DKNY, held at the restaurant Pastis, articulated another idea recurrent in Prada, the undying devotion to one's charming grandmother. Karan, who wore tight jeans to the show and looked as if she should be reaching for her bass guitar, turned out full pleated skirts, some in beautiful brocade prints, all displayed on mannequins who were pretending to eat scones. A pretty beaded cardigan was buttoned with an old-fashioned brooch. It was only in deviations from the Prada ideal -- cropped pants and newsboy caps -- that Karan made missteps. That, and the fact that her show centered on the theme of brunch.

Wenlan Chia, who designs a pretty line of clothes under the name Twinkle, also showed an affinity for the grandmotherly. Chia topped bulky hand-knit sweaters that looked spun from crochet needles with 1950s dresses and camisoles. Her signature intarsia sweaters, this time rendered in cool colors, were cleverly paired with floral printed chiffon skirts. Chanel-ish cardigans and chiffon dresses in simple shapes saved the collection from looking as if it had been the weekend wardrobe of an aggressively style-conscious high-schooler.

It was the mournful schoolgirl, though, who inspired Tess Giberson. Giberson showed austere gray and white skirts and dresses, long both in the literal sense and also in their austerity. Some garments carried a pretty simplicity -- a high-collared, three-quarter-sleeve a-line dress; a charcoal suit of the kind Veronique Branquinho might think up. But the designer's stark presentation cast a pall on them, with white walls, models turning toward you as if witnesses in a trial, their hair talcum-powdered and done up to look like gnocchi.

Certain designers, because of their youth, spunk and in Luella Bartley's case, London cool, fill the house season after season even when their collections appear as dangerously mixed bags. The most memorable feature of Bartley's collection were the lace-tied, sky-high spectator shoes, memorable because you couldn't envision a single woman in the metropolitan area ever wearing them. This may seem like an arbitrary geographical reference, but Bartley built her collection in some part around apple prints, which one took to mean as a tribute to New York life. Bartley's collection lacked any of a New Yorker's sense of polish.

Because of his work for Marc Jacobs and Tse, Richard Chai has arrived onto the fashion scene with a bit of buzz. The collection he showed indicated it might have been premature. Chai can cut a pair of skinny pants rather well. He seems enamored of almost no other shape but the high and narrow. But his clothes lack both the excitement of the experimentally impractical and the cheerful safety of the commercial.

Commercial is one of the many adjectives that one might pluck to describe the clothes of Lilly Pulitzer, which have changed, through history, only in the reach of their market. No longer the exclusive domain of third- and fourth-home owners, colorful Lilly shift dresses turn up across the country now. Younger women wear Lilly dresses with a sense of irony and that was precisely the spirit with which the show was delivered Sunday.

In addition to the traditional florals and faunas, solid-colored palazzo pants worn with gold belts were shown on models with heavily sprayed hair. The clothes had a sense of liveliness and fun. The costumers on Desperate Housewives will undoubtedly be calling.