"See, it's like, if you were lost at sea, and these were all little rafts…" So said Christian Wijnants before his show this evening, explaining the inspiration behind the delicate crystal embroidery on an olive green bomber jacket. You had to laugh: Wijnants is such a matter-of-fact guy, it's always a delightful surprise to be reminded that there's a real goofball streak concealed by his mild manner. And you could say that this collection perfectly encapsulated both his goofiness and his mildness. Riffing on the theme of "the jungle," and imagining a girl lost therein, the designer stuck to relaxed, decorous silhouettes. The fabrications, meanwhile, were pretty eccentric. The key material here was a coated linen that had a rain-slicker sheen; Wijnants used the fabric a lot, in shorts and culottes and low-slung skirts, like the one in beige that made up half of a kind of latter-day safari suit. The latex in the collection had a similar iridescence but didn't seem nearly as wearable. Elsewhere, he was having fun with his embellishments, from the confetti-like embroidery to the Swarovski crystals crocheted into latex and leather looks in weird, rather amoeba-like shapes. Those shapes reappeared in the standout items here: the chain-link crochet knits. Wijnants is a master of knit, a real innovator, and that's the medium in which he frees himself to take big risks. That derring-do paid off this season in garments like the ivory-colored crocheted tank top, which had a really distinctive flair. It was just the right amount of crazy.
