As Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs explained at an appointment today, they'd long had their hearts set on a pilgrimage to Africa. Last year, they finally went. Not together, mind you; Cushnie headed to Morocco, while Ochs went on safari. For their latest outing, the duo merged their impressions of their travels into a collection that gestured at varied African aesthetics in a nicely figurative way.
There were two key African-inspired themes here. One found Cushnie and Ochs riffing on the classic safari jacket, working in sand tones and paring down elements like the familiar belt and cargo pocket to a suggestive minimum. The other key motif was beading—some graphic black-and-white beading that had a clear tribal reference, and stronger doses of all-over, confetti-color embroidery that came off surprisingly understated. The patterns set into the collection's technical knitwear echoed the beaded effect, and together with the eyelash fringe punctuating a few garments, the knits and the beading introduced a welcome sense of texture.
One of the most interesting things here was this collection's emphasis on the jumpsuit, a garment that Cushnie and Ochs explored in nearly as many iterations as they did their dresses. Both the dresses and the jumpsuits were sharply tailored, but with fluid elements front and center; there was a lot of lovely draping on show. Overall, that gave the collection a languid tone somewhat removed from previous Cushnie et Ochs efforts, but the voice of the house still came through clearly. What these designers seemed to have taken from Africa was as much a vibe as a look, and the vibe was decidedly appealing.
