Victoria Barlett isn't the kind of girl who played dress-up with her Barbies as a kid; she's the kind who pulled her dolls apart before reassembling them. The designer is obsessed with the human anatomy—past VPL hits include "femur" and "patella" pants and the "deltoid" sweater. For pre-fall, she showed a quintessential collection of underwear-as-outerwear looks that highlighted unexpected body parts. One sweater had slashes at the shoulder blades, while a knit dress featured a very on-trend slit at the midriff. Nude leggings gave the illusion of spray-painted knees, and a cropped cocoon jacket had sleeves "rounded like an architectural overextension of the shoulder," as Bartlett described it. As per usual, she "threw everything off balance a bit" by mixing high with low, sporty with delicate. A tailored, jersey blazer came paired with ruched trousers in parachute nylon, for example; an oversize cover-up was cut in a silver that was more matte than metallic, taking on the look of tarnished chain mail. The British designer, who opened her first store last month in her adopted hometown of New York City, continues to articulate her distinctive point of view.
