At this point, it pretty much goes without saying that the frantic pace of fashion is testing the wherewithal of designers. Creating two coherent, compelling, and well-made collections per year is hard; adding pre-fall and Resort to the production schedule presents a significant challenge to the resources, both creative and practical, of even the most talented young designers. J.W. Anderson has made canny use of this Resort collection, giving himself the chance to expand on ideas he debuted last season. In particular, Anderson elaborated on his sharp volumes from Fall and that collection's experimentation with futuristic, technical materials. But he also added enough new ideas to the mix to make this season's clothes feel totally fresh.
Anderson's inspiration this time out was "Sunday clothes"—or, as he put it, the dressy looks that nice, bourgeois ladies wear to church. And there was something mumsy about this collection's range of mid-calf dresses and skirts, a tone played against by the pieces' execution in materials like vinyl-varnished taffeta and boiled nylon. The silhouettes helped with the update, too—Anderson's dresses, for instance, were surprising in their geometry and scale—as did the collection's palette, an entirely intuitive mix of Pepto pink, tonal grays, and blues and bright red and yellow redolent of the McDonald's logo. Elsewhere, Anderson added menswear grace notes—new soft-tailored jackets in pinstriped navy, and shirting such as dickeys and workwear smocks. The combination of full skirts and bandeaux read as Prada-esque—and Anderson did get his start at that label—but he took ownership of the look with a sharp, minimalist reinterpretation. All in all, this was a strong outing for Anderson. Indeed, taking obligation for opportunity, Anderson seized on this Resort collection to present his most thorough and refined vision for womenswear yet.
