Kendall Jenner has Marni Senofonte, Bella Hadid has Elizabeth Sulcer. Rolling with a personal stylist is practically a prerequisite for membership in the #wanggang. The attraction of Alexander Wang’s latest Resort collection, which the designer presented to buyers and press back in June, but is just now coming online, is that much of it will make the rest of us look like we have stylists on speed dial, too. Take the denim-cut-off-slash-leather-legging hybrids worn with a little tweed jacket in Look One. If that outfit doesn’t say #modeloffduty, what does? Consider, for starters, the bustier and white T-shirt combination or the tailored black blazer with the black denim jacket built in. Wang’s clothes are badges of cool, and they also make the business of being cool a little easier, and that’s clever.
Beyond the hybrids, which Wang emphasized on the runway at his Spring ’18 show too, his other talking point here was the collection’s DIY spirit. At a showroom appointment, he said he added knots to the straps of a little black dress and pulled an asymmetric black top off one shoulder to make it look like his customer had altered things herself. The results are still polished, but not precious, which is key to Wang’s downtown appeal. The exception was his high eveningwear, which is still a relatively new category for Wang. One strapless gown was restrained to the point of asceticism in that it was as disciplined as a molded black leather bustier can be.
