Albert Kriemler tends to look at art and architecture for inspiration. For Pre-Fall, he was thinking along more cinematic lines. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, as played by the photogenic Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in the 1967 movie, are his new muses. Beyond the jaunty berets, however, the references were subtle and smart, as befits the Akris brand.
Bonnie and Clyde's getaway car was a Ford, so Kriemler and co. hunted down Ford's color card from the early thirties and used it as the basis for the collection's palette of deep reds, charcoal grays, ivory, and black. Pleated below-the-knee skirts and pleated full-leg trousers likewise hinted at the outlaws' heyday. But Bonnie never had the good fortune of slipping into Akris' oversize leather bomber jacket, which reverses rather luxuriously to nubby shearling. And Dallas and its environs probably had nothing in the way of Akris' St. Gallen mill, nor the silk dresses with fused and embroidered lace that came out of it this season. If it had, Ms. Parker might have been tempted to swipe them.
