[By the time] we get to fall ’96, [fashion] is full-on ’90s. What’s so funny in retrospect is to see really how long it takes to see the evolution—from ’88 to ’96. That’s the timeframe in fashion; [things] start to shift, you start testing it, and then you start evolving, and then [it’s like], ‘Okay, here’s where we go.’
This was probably the most indulgent show we ever did, at the time. It’s the first show where I did all of this double-faced cashmere, all of these incredibly lush coats. The sweaters in that show were all 10-ply cashmere. We did a lot of leather in that show, and it’s super, super sleek and unadorned, but at the same time it was indulgent. We were also starting to see the rise of the young social set in New York, and so many of those young women were clients of ours. They were going to work, they were out every night and they had new rules that had nothing to do with the ’80s rules.
