Cristina Ortiz has had a tough go of it so far at Salvatore Ferragamo, her first two collections turning out more louche than ladylike. Happily, her third effort is much more polished and cultivated. Credit goes mostly to the tailoring: vaguely forties-ish jackets with hunched shoulders and diagonally cropped bell sleeves worn with pencil skirts or tapered and cropped trousers. One great-looking red dress with a high neck and an accent on the waist demonstrated that she's quite handy at sophisticated draping, too. Also in the plus column was her restrained approach to accessorizing, with fewer handbags making the runway.
Toward the end, though, Ortiz couldn't resist flashing some skin. She gets a pass for the dresses with sculptural, plunging necklines—more or less in keeping with the general sensibility of the collection—but not for the sheer sweaters. These were ill-considered bits of frivolousness that did nothing but distract from the perfectly elegant long skirts with which they were paired.
