Well, Riccardo Tisci, thanks for settling the debate that has been rumbling on about pre-fall, around these parts at least: Should designers be giving us real and really exciting fashion . . . or playing fill-in-the-wardrobe-gaps with plenty of perfectly good, if somewhat discreet and anonymous, pieces? Yes, it should be a no-brainer; the first option, please, what else? But not everyone is thinking that way. There have been quite a few collections in the past few weeks of pre-fall that have been full of straightforwardly lovely clothes but just aren’t going to get the heart beating even that little bit faster. Riccardo Tisci’s vision of Givenchy obviously doesn’t belong in that category because coming up with breathtaking fashion for Tisci is like, well, breathing itself; it’s something he just can’t help himself but do every single time he so much as picks up a pair of scissors, or a pen to sketch with.
Maybe that’s a little hyperbolic, but the reality is Tisci is cognizant of the fact that if you’re going to get women out to shop, you’d better inspire them, especially in these financially straitened times, to grab their purses and pocketbooks and beat a path to your door to snap up whatever you’re offering. Yet that’s not to imply that Tisci isn’t aware of the need to make clothes that are also absolutely wearable. His pre-fall is a distillation of all the Givenchy tropes he has come up with in the seven years he has worked at the house; which is to say, a kind of relentlessly cool take on androgynous urban/utilitarian dressing underscored with empowering, and compelling, notions of female sexuality.
There is the military-precision tailoring, in the form of khaki, olive, and sand jackets and coats, with many looking like the collision between, variously, a Perfecto, a double-breasted man’s coat, a blazer, and an army greatcoat. There are his trademark luscious tropical blooms that sparked last year’s Givenchy mania, now isolated as a single embroidery on a short dress with a fringe-trim scarf neckline, or spliced and paneled together with black or other archival prints into graphic dresses and skirts. And everywhere there is his wonderfully offhand way with the most luxurious materials—a crocodile sleeve, mink-trimmed sunglasses (I know . . . but they looked fantastic)—mixed up with the likes of cotton sweatshirting or melton wool. What all this results in is a collection from which, even if you picked out just one, maybe two, pieces, you’d end up with something that could make you feel like you’d elevated your look because you’re wearing a piece of clothing that feels new in every sense of the word. And that, in short, is exactly what pre-fall should be all about.
love love love 
