In a season where everyone was wondering about menswear post-Hedi, Nicolas Andreas Taralis offered a stopgap at Cerruti, of all places. The white light and dark electronics pulsating from a wall of speakers steered the audience into Slimane's shadow world, and it wasn't an association that Taralis exactly fought. His grimly chiseled Teutons stalked the catwalk in hypertailored jackets and narrow pants. Add details like beaded trims or gold stitching and the collection had enough of the night about it to evoke Hedi's influential eveningwear/daywear hybrid. Ties were as skinny as lapels; some jackets trailed away into tails, others had capelets that suggested the mythical military academy that the more outré menswear designers are periodically drawn to. If Taralis could be credited with his own direction, it lay in the sheer pieces, which had a stark decadence. Anyone who treasured memories of the Cerruti of yore would have felt like they'd fallen down the rabbit hole.
