Modern, sexy, and utterly cool. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez jolted the fashion flock out of its recession fatigue tonight, delivering a knockout collection full of directional yet wearable luxe clothes. The show began with outerwear: Camel wool twill coats and jackets inset with black, some with fur collars, looked like more relatable versions of the conceptual, deconstructed toppers they did last year. These were followed by cozy-chic tweeds. Example: a bomber tossed over a marled turtleneck tucked into cuffed shorts and cabled tights (a look spotted on many an editor this week).
Dresses played a big role here. A trio in midnight, spruce, and nude silk—high-necked, long-sleeved, and zippered up the back—echoed the streamlined silhouettes of race car-driver uniforms. Others, heavily worked in chevron-quilted wool satin, evoked latter-day suits of armor. Still more came in gorgeous shades of silk velvet dévoré with asymmetrical wrapped bodices. The best of the lot, though, was a violet embroidered silk dress that played nubby texture against see-through mesh. Unlike last season's show, which borrowed heavily from the arsenal of the eighties power babe, this collection referenced nothing so much as McCollough and Hernandez's own growing oeuvre. It proved that the duo don't lack for a strong vision. Boiled down to its essence? They understand what hip downtown girls want to wear.
