September 15, 2004
Crayola Meets Cotton Candy on the Runway
By CATHY HORYN
o look at Donna Karan's futuristic suits, with their cometlike streaks of silver and démodé panels of corsetry, was to see countless sci-fi movies realized, specifically that moment when the woman of the house arrives home and, after performing a successful docking maneuver with her spacecraft, hits a switch on the fridge door that produces a nutritionally balanced meal for her grateful family.
Conjuring up the world of tomorrow is maddening business for designers, especially when it's brought to you by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French spirits and luxury-goods conglomerate that owns Ms. Karan's brand. Should there be a glitch somewhere in the system — namely, an ungrateful consumer — there is always the chance that an executive will flip another switch, and Tomorrowland will wind up at Century 21.
Like the rest of our culture, fashion is constantly rebooting. It holds no convictions, except in the certainty of a fresh start, and no fear that anyone will be put out or be inconvenienced since the memory hole is deep. Thus, on Monday night, Marc Jacobs shifted again. He banished this fall's matronly crepes to oblivion and replaced them with girlish skirts and gingham in Crayola colors, avoiding the politically incorrect "flesh." His show notes, however, contained a curious political footnote. At the end of a list of credits (hair, makeup, the caterer) was the phrase, "Leonard Peltier is innocent." More about that in a moment.
Beginning with her first look, a gray off-the-shoulder suit, Ms. Karan seemed on a mission, as if determined with her rigorous tailoring and vented seams to reveal the future. To release the tension of her graphic silhouette, she had insets of pleated black netting and corset lacing, often crowded into a single outfit. But having a vision of the future and being able to render it in a believable way are different things, and Ms. Karan couldn't make the leap.
And strange as it must sound, though the soundtrack for her show on Monday sang of women, her models possessed a robotic look. In their corseted jackets and silvery skirts, they looked less cunning and free than expensively kept, like Stepford Wives.
"I just want to make things that are beautiful," Mr. Jacobs said after his show. And his clothes were very beautiful and cheerful — boxy tweed jackets exploding in blurred pink and green houndstooth, the lanky paper-bagged trousers in cotton stripes, the gingham checks and baby-doll dresses that recalled Mr. Jacobs's early years as a designer. Skirts were mostly full, in tiny floral brocades and teacup shapes and some with layered hems, a style that owes something to Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçon (and one Mr. Jacobs repeated, along with rolled jeans and deconstructed rugby shirts, in his Marc by Marc Jacobs line). And a finale of sleeveless A-line dresses in silk poplin with bows plumped down the back looked fresh as an evening statement.
But against all that prettiness, the reference to the case of Mr. Peltier, an American Indian who many people believe was wrongly convicted of the murder of two federal agents in 1975, seemed out of context, and even (unintentionally) to lend something profound to the show, the clothes and the celebrities. But Mr. Jacobs said he only included the phrase at the request of the British designer Vivienne Westwood, who has championed Mr. Peltier's cause.
There's something unsettling, though, about all the prettiness on the runway. Not that one expects American designers to be rebels — rebels for applause, maybe — but all the sugar-coated clothes present a narrow view of the world. Michael Kors, for instance, showed a terrific collection yesterday, filled with upbeat takes on the 1970's, like glossy python jackets with white jeans, tiger-print halter dresses, jeweled sandals and big candy-floss hair. But while the clothes looked very rich and glamorous, the view was somehow limited.
"Everything is so perfect here, like Paris Hilton in `The Simple Life,' " said Klaus Stockhausen, the fashion director of German GQ. "It makes everything seem more and more superficial."
