John Galliano's name is back in the news this week, thanks to word that he'll spend a few weeks in Oscar de la Renta's New York studio. His namesake collection, meanwhile, continues to skate by at a farther remove from the fashion conversation. Bill Gaytten has a sure hand at the helm—as he did even when his mentor was still in the building—but even the all-star lineup (Stephen Jones on millinery, Pat McGrath on makeup, Guido for hair) hasn't made this a must-see. It's a shame, because some of Gaytten's moments of oddity are inspired. This season, he took his cues from Joseph Beuys. The traditional Beuys felt hat arrived in supersize form. Beuys' taste for felt came in with felted, high-necked shirts, many shown with matching oversize jackets scribbled with chalk stripe or windowpane check, like a parody of traditional menswear. But parody may be the wrong word, because there was less jokiness than before, and more masculinity, albeit of an off-kilter kind. "I think the whole thing ended up quite boy," Gaytten said. "Beuys and boy." But by the eveningwear section at the end, that, too, had begun to unscroll, like the trailing scarves extending from the shirts.
