None other than Beyoncé Knowles hit the shows on Tuesday, making a whirlwind visit to J. Crew’s debut presentation, Vera Wang’s show (pictured second from left and far right), and Rodarte in Chelsea. Also at Vera Wang: Kim Kardashian and Madeleine Albright (whose granddaughter won tickets to the show at a school auction). Elsewhere, Marchesa’s Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig showed a collection inspired by marine life (far left); Tory Burch held her first runway show (second from right)—and Oscar de la Renta came out on top with lavish evening gowns (paired with afros). See highlights from the sixth day of New York Fashion Week.
Robin Givhan, Jacob Bernstein, Isabel Wilkinson, and Lizzie Crocker contributed to this report.
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Tory Burch’s first formal runway show opened with French music and a flirty raspberry silk dress with ivory polka dots and white tasseled loafers, setting the mood for a spring collection that evoked both Saint-Tropez in the 1960s and Paris in the '20s. There were crêpe de Chine blouses and skirts in psychedelic prints; Marimekko-esque florals; and tweeds in pale blues. A drop-waist silk dress in a “Normandie” print and a stripe sequined top paired with a pleated cotton skirt were other standouts in the eclectic collection, which drew comparisons to Marni and Missoni from Allure editor in chief Linda Wells. Others fawned over floor-length chiffon dresses in cotton-candy colors for evening. Burch’s signature gold logo was nowhere in sight—and there were only a few pieces that seemed to cater to Upper East Side preppydom. “It’s been incredible to watch her brand evolve,” remarked Elle creative director Joe Zee. “At the same time, it was all very feminine and fun, and that’s just so Tory.”
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There was more talk of brand evolution at J.Crew, where all of fashion’s elite gathered to see the latest creations from creative director Jenna Lyons and women’s designer Marissa Webb. “We’re trying to move away from the brand’s old-school preppy ideal and make it more modern, but we’re not abandoning our roots,” said Lyons. As usual, there was plenty of color in the form of bright neon pinks and greens, as well as the playful mismatching we’ve come to expect from the cult brand in recent years (a pink blouse paired with red trousers, a boatneck tee tucked into a paisley skirt, and plenty of polka dots paired with stripes). The crowd couldn’t get enough. “Talk about upbeat!” gushed Marie Claire fashion director and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia. “It just goes to show you don’t have to spend a lot of money to look amazing,” she said. “And Jenna’s got the trick.”
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First it was Nicki Minaj. Then it was the Glee cast. Then it was NBA players—but by the sixth day of New York Fashion Week, the stars kept getting bigger and bigger. When Beyoncé hit the shows on Tuesday, Twitter practically exploded. First she appeared at the J. Crew presentation at Lincoln Center. Rumor had it that her sister, Solange Knowles, had been invited to the presentation because she is a loyal costumer and friend of the brand. She had asked to bring a guest—little did J. Crew know it would be Beyoncé herself. The younger Knowles arrived in a J. Crew by Prabal Gurung top—and her sister in a sparkling J. Crew dress. But B had changed fully before the pair resurfaced at the Vera Wang show at 11 a.m., where they sat alongside Kim Kardashian and the designer Rachel Roy. (Solange stayed in her Prabal Gurung for J. Crew top.) Then it was downtown for a late arrival at the Rodarte show at noon (Beyoncé still in Vera), where they were the last people to take their seats. As the sisters pushed out of the building after the show, we asked Solange if they were heading anywhere else. “No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “This is it!"
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The front row at Rodarte read like a who’s who of young Hollywood: there was Taylor Swift, Saoirse Ronan, Elle and Dakota Fanning, and Rooney Mara—all, of course, wearing Rodarte. The Fannings sat with teen blogger Tavi Gevinson (who’s buddies with the Mulleavy sisters), while Swift sat in the big-kid section, directly next to Anna Wintour. Maybe she just has more of that Vogue look. But then the Beyoncé train arrived—and the newly pregnant star entered in a parade of people with her sister, Solange. We found Andy Samberg after the show. “That was awesome!” he said. But why was he, um, there? “My girlfriend,” he said, motioning toward a brunette in a cinched-waisted Rodarte dress. “I love Rodarte, but I love it even more on my girlfriend.” Solange Knowles, meanwhile, already had her eye on something from the collection. “Whatever that ‘Midnight in Paris’ dress was,” she told us as she was pushed out the door. “That was my favorite.”
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Last season, Kate and Laura Mulleavy said they were inspired by the ghost towns of the American Southwest—the season before, it was the Redwood forests of Northern California. But this time around their inspiration was unlikely: Vincent van Gogh. A series of dresses and separates blanketed the runway covered in the artist’s signature prints: sunflowers and starry skies. There were separates that included painters’ smocks and pants; brushstroke prints on dresses; and palettes that consisted of marigold and iridescent purple.
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At Vera Wang, there was Kim Kardashian, there was Beyoncé—and then there was Madeleine Albright, whose granddaughter, Ellie, had won tickets to the show at a school auction. "This is my very first fashion show," the former secretary of state told The Daily Beast. "I love Vera Wang. She's a wonderful person and a great friend. Mostly I love the atmosphere here, because we've had a pretty tough week, and this is so refreshing. This is about the future. It's about resilience and the spirit of America."
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“Alice in Wonderland” was the inspiration at Vera Wang, where the designer played with “tailoring and transparency” by molding flowing chiffon and gauze fabrics into structured fencing jackets and cupcake skirts. Neons in vaguely floral patterns provided “a ‘trippy’ counterpoint” to the crisp whites predominating in the first batch of looks from the collection. Even the best-trained eyes in the audience fell for Wang’s trompe l’oeil effects. “You couldn’t really tell immediately that the neon print was a floral pattern,” said Ken Downing, fashion director at Neiman Marcus. “It had a little bit of a Rorschach sensibility, but it was actually a floral.”
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There are certain designers who make a few dresses, hire a publicity firm, cross their fingers, and hope a celebrity will wear their designs on the red carpet come Oscar season. Then there are the lines, like Marchesa, that seem born with the red carpet in mind. “We have been very lucky,” said one of its designers, Georgina Chapman, before the show. According to Chapman and designer Keren Craig, this season they were inspired by a painting called Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom by the artist Ilya Repin. And there was evidence of a lot of deep-sea diving: there were tiers of tulle that moved like jellyfish; tulle gowns had oyster-shaped pleats; and some dresses came with scale-like embroidery. See our complete coverage of backstage at Marchesa’s show here.
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Kanye West is officially debuting his top-secret womenswear collection in Paris on Oct. 1 at 9:30 p.m. He’s reportedly paired up with British designer Louise Goldin, and has enlisted Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci as a mentor—but he hasn’t begun calling his model friends … yet. But as of Tuesday of New York Fashion Week, the supermodel Karolina Kurkova, 27, hadn’t heard much about the show. “It’s his own show?” she said when we asked if she knew anything about it. “Does it have a name? It’s strange that we don’t know, because it’s coming up so soon!” Would you walk in it, we asked, if Kanye asked you to? “If it’s the right team, if it’s the right thing,” she said. “Let’s see. I don’t know.” The 19-year-old model Karlie Kloss, meanwhile, was more enthusiastic. “I haven’t gotten any calls yet, but I hope to,” she said. “Because I’d love to be a part of that. He’s a really good friend and a sweet guy, so if—and when—I get the call, I’ll be strutting my stuff for Kanye!”
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Not one to let younger designers get a leg up on him, Oscar de la Renta took his Spring 2012 show to a raw 25th-floor midtown space where exposed pipes snaked across the ceiling and electrical wiring hung in dusty coils. Nicki Minaj (this time in a plush pussycat hat) sat in the front row on one side of the runway, and Justin Timberlake—in a suave business suit—sat opposite. The models' hair was teased out into floppy afros, and a retro-rock mix blasted from the speakers. But the clothes were mostly pure and classic de la Renta: embroidered day dresses and some of the most indulgent evening gowns around. Taffeta skirts in marigold and bright red billowed out as the models strutted; ostrich feathers fluttered around skirts; and there were daffodil-embroidered bodices, and fluffed-up sleeves with elaborately pleated tulle. The collection ricocheted between dazzling and overwrought, confidently sophisticated and urgently youthful. It was the work of a designer stubbornly holding on to his turf. And for every misstep, there was a graceful note of curiosity and experimentation.
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You have to respect a man who knows what he's good at and stays true to it. For practically as long as he's been showing, Narciso Rodriguez has been known for his bold Mondrian-inspired prints, a love of minimalism, and clothes that fit close to the body but are never dripping with obvious sex appeal. He stayed true to that for Spring 2012, but the show he put on at Lincoln Center nevertheless saw him stretching somewhat from his comfort zone, with a color palette that included more earth tones than usual, slightly looser trousers, and diaphanous silk gowns that were sheer and translucent, with little touches of green and orange.
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