That sensual, streamlined, putting-the-charm-into-charmeuse look that Francisco Costa came up with for Calvin Klein next spring? Well, it seems like he is still somewhat in that mood, if Costa’s pre-fall is anything to go by, except it’s gotten stricter, more structured, and sometimes tinged with a masculine swagger. Those bias-seam lines, on slip dresses as slippery and undulating as any wispy piece of thirties lingerie, are now arranged in graphic configurations, cleaving to the body in the form of two-dimensional “pleats.” They were there throughout the collection, including the two strong opening looks: a broad-shouldered, double-breasted, and belted, felted wool coat in a color Costa calls “brindle” (that would be brown to you and me); and a nip-waist suit, the molded jacket contrasted with a figure-hugging skirt, the strict control of its cut released at the back in a fan of flattened pleating in a fishtail formation.
Creating a tension between a more architectural look and a softer idea of dressing was the right move on Costa’s part. In the past, his collections have flipped between a super-sculpted monastic minimalism, or a warmer, looser, sexier idea of simplicity, and it often felt like the latter was more instinctually right to, and for, him. By melding the two together, it added sharpness to the softness, and a sensuousness to the severity. The only quibble here? The weightiness of some of those layered wool and leather bustier-sweater combos, which suggested a strait-laced librarian had turned sexpot—or vice versa—and was readying herself for a subarctic snowstorm.
Elsewhere, Costa might be the first to sound the call for a return to a bigger, bolder shoulder, with the line of his coats and jackets extending into a roomier, square-cut sleeve. It looked striking on a gray (“slate” in Calvin-speak) stripped-down coat, secured with a tightly fastened belt, and a gray cashmere–and–brown leather bomber jacket, worn with a lean leather skirt cut with the slightest hint of a flare. Will the über-shoulder catch on? Who knows. But in a pre-fall season that has been thus far pretty quiet—straightforward, straight-up clothes have been the order of the day—its newness was a compelling sight.
