Ask a fashion person what Joseph Altuzarra is known for, what he does best, and nine times out of 10 they'll tell you a pencil skirt with a thigh-high slit. Having a signature is essential to success on sales floors, but you have to know when to pivot, too. That's what Altuzarra did for Resort with his miniskirt. There was only one, but the black-and-white-check mini with buttons up one seam and, yes, a small slit up the other, added a youthful bit of cool to his sexy, sophisticated lineup. It made an impression on the editors assembled in his showroom this morning.
Pivoting wasn't the whole story though. Altuzarra also devoted a fair bit of energy to reworking past hits, less so his pencil-skirt silhouettes, although there were many of those, and more so fabrics that look familiar from previous collections. The pied de poule from his Rosemary’s Baby show was reimagined as a structured stretch cady pantsuit; the tie-dye technique he used for Spring ’16, and which you see in fashionable spots all over town, became a print that he used for a pleated skirt and a shirtdress.
“I didn't want ‘a huge look,’ but things women want to wear every day,” he said, as the models made their exits. The Resort equivalents of the aforementioned Spring tie-dye we're seeing everywhere? If we had to hazard a guess, we’d bet it’ll be the navy knit dress he spliced with a red lace–trimmed slip dress. Everyday-ness also came across in the way he paired a collectible studded sweater with a sequined lace skirt. Both of them are precious enough on their own, but teamed up they captured an offhand cool similar to that of his new miniskirt.
