Count Co among the brands currently exhibiting an intense yearning for nature. Stephanie Danan and Justin Kern aren’t designers who default to the pastoral—their clothes err toward a fusion of Old World formality and urbane functionality—but every so often in their collections a sense of romance sneaks through, and this season the duo were mad crushing on their local Los Angeles ecology. The proof was in the fabrics—pebble-patterned fil coupe, wave-pleated silk, pliant jacquard woven in a foliage repeat, not to mention shaved shearling, mottled wool jersey, and sandwashed linens that hinted at an earthy tone. Given the understatement of the Co aesthetic, the materials often provide the flash in the brand’s collections, and that was true again here, though there were other grace notes, such as trumpet sleeves and wide, ’70s-esque collars.
Designers—Kern and Danan included—have a habit of conflating “nature” with “the distant past.” The implication would seem to be that nature itself is as much an artifact of a bygone era as, say, women wearing broad, floor-sweeping skirts in the middle of the day. There’s something nervy about the fact that Co proposes a nigh-on Victorian silhouette as viable for 2016—Kern and Danan have tested that look before, but they pursued it with conviction here, and it was hard to deny the appeal of, say, their long, flounced skirt in sky blue linen, even if that item didn’t read as particularly practical. A more modern-seeming accommodation of that proportion idea was to be found in the collection’s voluminous palazzo pants, executed most elegantly in wave-pleated navy silk. Paired with a tee, those palazzos would make for a very up-to-date, day-to-night look.
It’s not that Kern and Danan aren’t savvy to the modern woman’s needs and desires. And they do find ways to incorporate casual gestures into their generally soigné clothes. This season’s open necklines added a whiff of louche-ness, for instance, while the ongoing Co collaboration with François Girbaud evolved, this time out, to include denim iterations of signature Co shapes. These pieces had a nice laid-back tone. The irony, of course, is that it’s the very modesty of the preferred Co silhouette that makes the brand’s clothes so undemanding to wear—the generous bell and A-line shapes can come off rather reserved, but they’re the kind of thing many women are most happy to put on. “Ease” doesn’t always equate to “casual.” Those Victorian ladies may have been onto something, in other words.
