Buy-now-wear-now is one of Yigal Azrouël's credos for his Cut25 line—no doubt even more so when it comes to the sales-driven nature of pre-season collections. That idea smacks of an accessible, easy-to-digest, and, most important, easy-to-shop quality. So Azrouël is content to largely eschew the conceptual, and his jumping-off points for Pre-Fall were vague enough: something about '60s modernism, but not of any stripe too specific or regional. There were traces of it in the collection's heavy use of asymmetry (one-shouldered necklines on dresses and jumpsuits) and around the edges of a pattern or two, but silhouettes stayed firmly on this side of the 21st century. These clothes make easy, unobtrusive nods to motifs of recent seasons, contemporary without alienating the less fashion-obsessive customer: leather-collared button-downs; the wrapped knit crop top; bagged trousers with a D-ring belt. Yet the strongest pieces were those where Azrouël's eye for the sensual came through, like a standout peekaboo knit dress whose hem bore a zigzagging curtain of fringe.
