Industry veterans may recall a time when hemlines alone could shock, and were wielded by couturiers as cattle prods to the masses: A mere rise of an inch was described as “electrifying” by the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1962. But with reliably forward-thinking Miuccia Prada now sending men down the runway in skirts, it takes more than a little emaciated thigh to shock the populace. We’re thinking of Gwyneth Paltrow, who spent this summer bouncing around in sequined minidresses. This might’ve been considered transgressive given the curb-grazing hemlines otherwise dominating Us Weekly (not to mention Ms. Paltrow’s status as a mother of two). But no one really cared.
“Lengths are all over the place,” sighed designer Marc Bouwer the other day at Splashlight Studios in Tribeca, where he was preparing his first virtual fashion show, which will debut online Sept. 8. “There’s definitely a trend toward the longer length. I think the longest length for a shorter dress is calf-length; I love that, but it needs to be narrow. I like the micro-minis; I think we have three micro-minis in the show. So it’s either the longer length or it’s really short. I think anything in between doesn’t look right.”
Mr. Bouwer had a bleach-blond helmet of hair that lent him the look of a glam rocker. He was attending to the ’70s-poolside-inspired bouffant hairdos and floor-length gowns of his models, among them the heiress Lydia Hearst, who padded around the space in a full head of rollers. Far from finding his creativity proscribed by the dour economy, he said he was inspired to do a “happy, bright collection.”
“I think anyone who grew up in the ’70s remembers the rainbow belt, and they remember butterflies,” he said. “Just because it’s been dark on the economic front, that’s just not where I wanna go. I’m looking forward to a new future, a bright perspective, a new chance, a new beginning, a brightness, fireworks, joy, happiness, and sexiness. …”
But Mr. Bouwer allowed that his virtual format, aside from being a catchy marketing gimmick, was also about 50 percent less expensive. “It just makes sense to pare down the show a bit,” he said. “Because we spend so much money on it, on showing at Bryant Park, and we love showing there, it’s just become increasingly difficult to get a really decent time slot.”
‘FULL STEAM AHEAD’
Since the 1920s, hemlines have been tied to the vagaries of the stock market, so perhaps the current confusion makes sense, given that the industry can’t definitively answer whether it’s succeeding or failing. “We were all surprised, thinking business seems to be off, and everybody’s complaining about the economy, but we have a terrific full house,” said Ms. Mallis. She said that there was an uptick in registration from the foreign press, leading her to believe that Europe’s buying contingents will also be robust, capitalizing on a weak dollar but nonetheless helping to propel business forward.
“I think people are realizing that this is probably not the moment to cut back,” said Mr. McCarthy. “If you start suddenly cutting back, people get the sense, ‘Oh, maybe business isn’t so good.’ And also this is a huge marketing tool, and if you’re not out there selling your name and selling your product, people will forget you.” Mr. McCarthy suggested brands were cutting back on advertising, parties—anything but fashion shows.
“All of our clients are going full steam ahead, and they’re very excited,” said the publicist Vanessa Von Bismarck, who represents brands such as Dennis Basso, Derek Lam and Herve Leger. “And so far I haven’t heard from them yet that there is a lot of pain there, if you see what I mean, as far as the economy is concerned.”
Of course, for many established designers, the pain is not the economy at all, but the mere pace of fashion these days, which now necessitates twice-yearly runway shows as well as “pre” and “resort” collections, which tend to be more salable, compared to outlandish runway pieces destined for half-nude spreads in French Vogue. “This industry is just turning us into auto—what do you call them, auto-MA-tons?” said New Zealand-born Rebecca Taylor with a sigh. She assumed a mock-robotic voice: “I-will-keep-designing-more-and-more-products!”
“It’s there lingering in the back of my mind,” said Ms. Cibani, of Ports 1961, of the queasy-making economy. Nonetheless: “A time like this is when you definitely need to give more. More romance, more interest, more desirable things that turn people on, give people hope and make them want to be alive.”
Ms. Holstein said her collection was inspired by “the pixelation in, like, old Nintendo. If you go through it, there’s tile hearts, and it’s all about tiling and mosaics. And then in conjunction with 1940s chorus lines.”
“I stopped reading fashion magazines because they give me an intense amount of anxiety now,” she said, messy long brown hair partially obscuring her smoky eyes. “So I’ve really fallen out of the loop in terms of trends. …”
Maybe that’s because most trends are too short-lived nowadays to change the way women dress in any tangible, measurable way. We’ve pushed hemlines to both outer limits, blurred the boundaries of day and night, masculine and feminine, flattering and unflattering. Yet the fall 2008 collections, shown last February, produced a host of heralded new talent but no “Le Smoking,” the piece that defined the career of the recently deceased Saint Laurent. As bright-eyed newbies like Ms. Holstein eye the 1980s and 1940s, Mr. Benz is now reaching all the way back to the 19th century. “We went back to pre-Revolutionary War for a lot of the details, and silhouettes,” he said. He plans to show them against a custom-made theatrical backdrop, in a sort of “half-presentation, half-show.”
“No one really knows what a fashion show is at this point,” he said.
mbryan@observer.com
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