In keeping with her mission to grow Khaite into the next great American sportswear brand, Catherine Holstein hasn’t tried her hand at party dressing much. She’s been busy elevating classic, casual East Coast staples like knitwear, denim, trenchcoats, and shirting; her knits and jeans in particular have a cultish following. Resort 2019 was a marked departure, not because she backed away from those categories—the cashmere knits were as strong as ever, and her new slim boot-cut jean is going to be huge—but because she introduced some of her fanciest, most labor-intensive pieces yet.
Considering these clothes will deliver in November, Holstein had holiday dressing on her mind. For the Khaite woman celebrating New Year’s Eve on an island, there were two razor-pleated, deep-V party dresses in white and cherry red cotton. Holstein approached them as an “exercise,” likely a product of her art background. “I wanted to push cotton to the limit in terms of technique, to see how elaborate a dress I could make with it,” she said. With velvet sashes in the back—the red dress had a black one, and the white dress came with burgundy ties—they were a genuine surprise.
For those of us spending the holidays in New York or another cold climate, Holstein’s pleated, ankle-length skirts looked remarkably cool with chunky cardigans and belted blazers. They had an easy, sculptural drape, but Holstein said they were “laborious” to make. The polka-dot skirt wasn’t printed, for instance—each dot was actually flocked velvet—and the solid ones in orchid, black, and cream were made using eight panels of crepe. Laborious? Yes. But not even a little bit fussy.
