Every artist has a preferred medium, and leather has always been Barbara Bui's canvas of choice. Her pre-fall collection offered urban staples cut from the stuff, including color-blocked motocross stovepipes and a quilted overcoat with a cocoonish, away-from-the-body shape (the oversize outerwear silhouette is still having a moment). Other standouts in the leather category were a saffron-colored sweatshirt and a bomber jacket in pony hair laser-cut into a baroque, dragonlike pattern. In the end, though, head-to-toe leather outfits are difficult to pull off, so we'd encourage the designer to push her boundaries more moving forward. A good place to start would be her killer Le Smoking suit, which looked cool worn with zippered flat shoes that had a punk-rock vibe.
