For Fall, Only Donna Karan Delivers

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 12, 2006

NEW YORK, Feb. 11 -- The odor of desperation hung in the air as the fall fashion shows came to a close here. Young designers stretched their immature talent beyond their limits. A more established hand indulged in high concept experimentation, failed to consider the needs of the customer and looked ridiculous. A big brand rested on its reputation. And a few designers just seemed to have come down with a nasty case of the uglies. One can only hope that it's not contagious.

Only designer Donna Karan got everything right. In the collection she presented Friday afternoon, her love for New York, women and soul-searching were perfectly balanced and blended. Karan always ends her program notes with the phrase "To be continued." The words suggest she understands that her dialogue with women is in constant flux. The topics of concern shift, the emotions rise and fall with life changes and obligations are ever increasing. Karan draws energy from that inconsistency.

Much has been written about the designer's longing for personal growth, about her search for peace and focus through yoga, through meditation, through raw food.

All of those notions make for fine gossip. But Karan is one of the few designers whose admirable goal is to aid a woman in finding security, confidence and herself as the hectic energy of New York -- or any city -- spins around her.

For fall, Karan limits her color palette to black, charcoal, red and purple. Only occasionally does she inject a spark of white or a glimmer of gold. She molds her coatdresses to stand just slightly away from the body, echoing its hourglass shape. Her fluid dresses with their cowl backs fall seductively down the body and allow for an alluring view of a woman's spine, her waist and the gentle slope that leads to her derriere. The clothes tease the eye, but they aren't coquettish. They evoke self-assurance. These are womanly clothes that speak of intelligence without being all twisted up, raw-edged and incomprehensibly "intellectual."

Karan's clothes do not look as though they have been created to satisfy the impetuous desires of the latest Vanity Fair cover starlet. These clothes are too smart for the typical winsome actress or junior socialite.

Susan Sarandon, yes. Paris Hilton, no. They're not full of sequins or ruffles. Necklines don't plunge recklessly. No, there is cool calculation in just how far that cashmere and jersey will recede. These clothes don't live without a woman in them. Put them on a dress form and they are little more than expressionless technique. A woman's swan neck rising up from a jeweled neckline gives the dress its regal attitude. Her strong back is what makes a flowing gown sexy.

Karan highlights the parts of a woman's body that speak of effort, strength and determination. There is powerful symbolism in the vision of a graceful woman with a back rippling with muscles. They do not get there by chance. They are earned. Strong shoulders are not bought through plastic surgery. They are built with sweat and concerted effort.

In celebrating a woman's strength -- both physical and mental -- Karan does not lose sight of her customers' sensuality, of her desire to be romanced. There is a vulnerability to these dresses with their insets of transparent illusion netting. They are not only approachable, but also touchable. Karan's clothes articulate the complicated message that women themselves so often have difficulty putting into words: Strength, confidence and independence do not negate a desire and a need for a confidante, a partner and a little breathless romance.

Karan's collection was also inspiring because it showed such perfect balance between a designer's desire to be creative and the customer's desire to not look like they're wearing an art project. The collection that Francisco Costa showed under the Calvin Klein label lacked balance. No one was advocating for women. No one was reminding the designer that he is at work within the confines of an established aesthetic. He can expand it, modernize it or reinterpret it. But he should also respect it.

For spring, Costa offered one of the most beautiful collections of the season. It expressed his own artful desires but it also spoke of the minimalism and modernism that define the Calvin Klein brand. For fall, Costa, showing in the company's new loft-like exhibition space, presented a collection of mostly translucent gowns intricately woven with a chevron pattern. Dresses were embroidered and often included chiffon bras with straps visible from the back. There were ruffles and toggles that looked like they had been molded from chunks of bamboo. As a diplomatic and indulgent parent might say, one could tell that Costa had put a lot of work into that collection. Indeed, every bit of energy, angst and labor was evident in each garment. There was nothing easy or effortless about these clothes. One could practically see the designer's sweaty fingerprints on each piece of chiffon. It was an exhausting collection to watch. It teetered dangerously toward the sort of wearable art that one might find at a craft show.

That's not necessarily an unattractive product, but it's not fashion.

Throughout the show, one kept wondering who exactly might be enticed into wearing these clothes. The average woman would most likely feel too exposed, too fussy in all that unsubstantial, yet ornately treated chiffon. An actress heading down the red carpet would be warned off the collection by her stylist. Kathy Griffin and every tabloid and blog would hold her up for mockery. Isaac Mizrahi would accost her breasts.

One can't even imagine Gwyneth Paltrow, who has worn confections by Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga, in these clothes. If not Gwyneth, then who?

A designer certainly doesn't -- and perhaps shouldn't -- have a particular customer in mind as he designs. He has to follow his creative spirit. His passion and conviction should guide him. Still, there has to be some inner voice -- the same one that helps him balance his own checkbook -- that keeps him from allowing creativity to ambush the reality of women's lives and the responsibility one has to the name on the label. That name is Calvin Klein, not Francisco Costa.

* * *

Which is worse, a designer who pushes his creativity too far, or one who doesn't bother to even tap into his? Designer Ralph Lauren presented his collection Friday morning in front of an audience that included his family, possible family-member-to-be Lauren Bush and the actresses Joy Bryant and Halle Berry. Olive green dominated the line. Call it the "Loden Collection," not to be confused with last fall's "Gray Collection" or the "Camel Collection" before that or the "White Collection" before that. Lauren's fall collection was equestrian, Tyrolean, all-American and altogether too familiar. Olive plaid fitted blazer, loden wool skirts, light green leggings and sage-colored turtleneck gowns with floor-sweeping hemlines. Lauren never turns his aesthetic topsy-turvy from one season to the next. But there are usually subtle tweaks, a more refined silhouette or a surprising bit of eveningwear. Everything in this collection seemed dusty with history -- Lauren's own.

The few pieces of black velvet had been transformed from heavy to leaden thanks to an overuse of gold braid and trim. The effect was too theatrical and gave the clothes a stuffy, period costume look. The designer walked out to take his bows in a sweater and a pair of brown leather trousers with buttons and fringe along the side and looking quite like he'd just strolled in from Brokeback Mountain. Lauren believes in costuming. He believes that a woman can transform herself simply by dressing the part. For him, the entire world is a stage. But one wishes that he'd offered a new story line for fall.

* * *

The shows here ended with the debut of Karl Lagerfeld's new signature collection -- a modestly priced, mass appeal brand. The line is geared toward both men and women and has a distinctly urban sensibility, with its concentration on black, brown and gray. The men wear slim jeans that hang off their rear end, not because they are too big but because the models do not have glutei maximi to fill them out.

There are starched white shirts with shawl collars and sweaters punched full of holes. The women's skirts are long, their sweaters overstretched and the overall attitude rather dour.

Nevertheless, if this collection is well-priced, it will offer customers a more world-weary take on sportswear than they can currently find in the department store world of cropped tops, satin dresses and designer sweat suits.

* * *

Earlier this week ugly struck. Women strutted around fashion shows with faces so stretched and pumped full of Botox they looked as though they were wearing a mask. Ex-model and ex-celebrity judge Janice Dickinson strutted about with a teased up pompadour that made her look like a rooster with a dye job. And designer Bryan Bradley of Tuleh and the team behind Badgley Mischka presented collections that were disconcertingly unattractive.

At Tuleh there were oversize balloon sleeves on voluminous fur coats, knife-pleated kimono dresses in frowzy purple prints and an overwhelming sense that Bradley had been designing in the dark.

And designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka -- who recently served as judges on "Project Runway" -- presented a collection that included a purple lamé gown. Their usual pitch-perfect understanding of glamour and entrance-making beauty seemed to have gone missing. And instead, one was left with a collection that seemed more interested in churning up attention from video stylists and magazines that like to show someone's ear and call it a portrait.

* * *

The New York show schedule has become overrun with young designers, many of them bursting with technical expertise, enough financing to mount a show and enough creative energy to attract an audience. This was a season, however, when many of them seemed to be in an artistic slump.

Thakoon Panichgul floundered with a collection of lace-trimmed, nondescript black skirts and dresses.

Peter Som became obsessed with bubble skirts and bubble dresses and double-bubble gowns. Behnaz Sarafpour ended her show with a group of velvet party dresses with thick white crinolines that would make any woman look like her name ought to be Baby Spit and Chew -- batteries not included. Brian Reyes lost his way with a collection that included high-waisted trousers, egg-shaped dresses and other unconnected ramblings. Monique L'Huillier designed a collection that looked far too much like a watered down version of Yves Saint Laurent with its emphasis on lace, ruffles, bubbles and suffocating frills.

Too often, Zac Posen's shows are more celebrations of fame and charm than presentations of a finely developed design sensibility. But for fall, Posen turned his attention to tailoring, producing several well-cut, sexy trouser suits that aptly displayed his attention to line and detail. The accolades paid to Posen still enormously outweigh his ability. (In this collection, he included an enormous bubble gown in which the model could not walk.) But he is realizing that the mark of a great designer is understanding how a few powerful strokes can often be more than enough.

The fashion industry encourages designers to do more, to step more fully into the spotlight before they are ready. The industry desperately needs its next generation of star designers. There's enormous talent in the minor leagues. But whether it is ready for the limelight is questionable.

Perhaps the greatest evidence of this was in the runway presentation mounted by the label Trovata. The collection, created by four young Californians, is based on classic, preppy sportswear.

They have taken those basic shapes and played with them, adding eccentric details and flourishes, most notably mismatched buttons. Trovata received the second CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award. The prize comes with $200,000.

Based on the collection they presented Wednesday evening, it is inexplicable what recommended that triumph. They opened their show with a couple of yodelers. They sent one model out with a burly Saint Bernard dog. (This is typically fashion's equivalent of "jumping the shark.") What came between looked as though it had been pulled from the nearest Gap, J. Crew and L.L. Bean, the buttons ripped off and a new batch of mismatched ones stitched on. Cute. But not good enough to stake an industry's future on.