Gary Graham was excellent. This collection seemed to herald a new direction for him. If his past tendency to sort of "dwell" on themes takes some hold with this subtle yet significant departure, there's much hope for New York fashion in general, should he pick up his pace some from collection to collection especially.
Reason for hope multiplies (thankfully) if you throw michael & hushi into the equation. Obvious fans of high drama, some pieces combine really too well the glam
our of a not
quite divinely overboard but a
very-close-to-the edge of wildly-infatuated Galliano with a shockingly well-executed,
sorta intellectual geometry that might've earned a
nod from master Miyake himself. Sound nuts

? It's
very that... very gorgeous.
New York is good at glamor, for sure.
With the likes of romantic de la Renta, the romantic practicality of Herrera, and the romantic
flair of Badgley-Mishka even, it's indisputable and there's plenty to go around. Yet for me, and not to minimize the loveliness of these collections, it's much too pedestrian. The irony of ironies perhaps is that drama's left the building... Pr/Sc and yet another duo Vasseur-Esquivel have the potential to lure her back as well, but my gut feelling (and offered with really just the tiniest, itty-bitty sigh) is that their
eight ears are more to the ground for the buyers in that market.
Lutz Fall 2003
...
Stand out, don't stick out? Or subtler still?
Finally (

)

... almost a converse scenario hangs like a promising cloud over Paris with the threat of storm Lutz hitting. Just a really great collection. Sophisticated yet simple, it's the precisely perfect midtone pitch on (what he shows convincingly is perhaps) a
not necessarily so antagonistic scale from avant garde to J.C.
Penney catalogue. People won't be
quite able to put a finger on it and soon will
just accept that this girl has the "fashion thing" down and together.
Hmmm... in short (

) I think the style.com picks here were well-observed for the most part

.
P.S.
Is this two in a row for its top ten annals?
P.P.S. This is too long for me even to care to check for glaring mistakes, so forgive those please until tomorrow 