Party clothes are Matthew Williamson's specialty. But last season, after landing the Emilio Pucci gig, he practiced unfamiliar restraint on his own runway in an effort to separate the two labels. Today, the pendulum swung back, way back. Williamson showed a wildly over-the-top collection for a girl on permanent vacation in Ibiza. Colors were psychedelic, prints were loud, and mirrored sequins glinted. The opening look—coral short shorts and a chambray chemise heavily embroidered with wood and plastic beads—had a bit of the relaxed boho vibe he once favored, but from there he went all-out glam with fluoro brights and kaleidoscopic digital prints on smock dresses, sweater vests, and a bathing suit.
In the right time and place—i.e. at 4 a.m. on the dance floor at Pacha—some of it could work, the lily pad-print sleeveless minidress, for example. But at 4 o'clock in the afternoon in a West Side ferry terminal quite a few of these pieces looked garish. And there's probably never a right time for the embroidered and studded Mexican peasant top he sent down the runway with floral leggings.
