The London Olympics, which have turned many usually oblivious heads toward the world of sport, should be a boon for Victoria Bartlett. Athleticism underlines her collections; she's part designer, part kinesthesiologist. For Resort, scuba-suit snugness met soft draping. There were intricately seamed tops that hugged, then flowed, and open-weave, netlike knits that hung appealing off the body. She looked to cubism to create color-block dresses in mixed fabrics, like ultrathin Japanese suede and Cupro, punched up here and there with patches of sequins. ("Deconstucted bling," she called it.) Cuts, slashes, and plunging necks revealed the underthings underneath, the foundation and literal building blocks of her collection. (Visible Panty Line: not just a name but a promise, too.) The ever-present athletic theme was expressed in the long dresses from VPLX, the ready-to-wear capsule that grew, quite literally, out of the bras. They looked ready for a red carpet in an Olympic Village.
