Peter Som’s fall inspiration was a giddily off-the-beam aristocrat of the Grey Gardens genre: the kind of woman who piles a big gold heirloom brooch (or three) on her unraveling tweed and pulls herself together with the help of a thin alligator belt (and maybe a midmorning martini). It was a great starting point for a lighthearted, swinging collection that touched on the season’s emerging trends with Som’s usual charm.
Som poured on the colors. He mixed apple green, chocolate brown, and lilac in the first outfit alone and then added in pale blue, deep plum, taupey pink, and navy. His fabrics had plenty of texture to play with, as well. There were the season’s darlings, tweed and chiffon, in addition to soft cashmere knits, moiré taffeta, wool gabardine, tulle, a vine-printed silk twill, and heavy duchesse satin, all decked with fox, sheared mink, and plenty of gleaming Verdura pins. He kept the silhouette ladylike but not fusty: There were pencil skirts, boxy jackets, sheath dresses, elegant collarless coats, and great low-slung trousers, worn with Alexandra Neel’s sexy, strappy stilettos. As his socialite-packed front row attests, Som is a dab hand at the special-event wardrobe. This time, he showed a lovely fluid black charmeuse camisole with the skirt covered in fluttering chiffon leaves, an elegant black silk moiré sheath with a deep-plunging back, and a pink-chiffon beaded confection that will tickle the fancy of bluebloods far and wide.
