According to Olivier Theyskens, his Spring 2000 show, “will always remain very important because somehow I brought a lot of restriction in my choices creatively and I really worked with a very narrow palette.” Blacks, whites, and muddy tones, were brightened by splashes of white and yellow, and the designer created optical illusions working with Taroni’s outsized check and polka dot prints. Just as the models were supposed to appear lost between earth and sky as they walked on a soil-covered runway with a cloudy sky projected above them, so Theyksens was drawn both to floaty chiffons and fabrics with a heavier hand, like coated linens and others resembling a painter’s canvas.
His main jumping off point was an antique find from the early 1900s: “a very light, trench-shaped silk coat that inspired most of my tailoring with these little shirrings at the shoulder, these little curvy edges to the collars,” Theyskens says now. It wasn’t only the tailoring that was soft in this collection though; Theyskens introduced his first bias-cut pieces this season. “I loved the material first,” he recalls, “and then I just was curious how it would work; I just wanted some more fluidity.”