The opening section of this show—mixing stylized surfwear with womenswear adapted from men’s tailoring—reminded me powerfully of that awesome scene in Point Break in which Johnny Utah takes his surfboard into the office and announces, “I caught my first tube this morning, sir.” Just like Utah’s character progression, this was a collection that started out square, processed, and besuited, but became more and more organic and blissed-out by the kinetic allure of surf and surf culture.
A racerback dress in paillettes that etched graphic, dynamic patches of color was worn barefoot with a shell anklet. A dress in menswear check with a wave of fabric at the waist had apparently been partially resprayed from gray to turquoise and lemon. A skirt with suit-jacket buttons in superfine gray wool was worn casually slung off one hip below a bikini top and above a pair of Sportmax logo slides. A corset-stitched dress in what looked like a technical nylon was ruched and gathered with drawstrings which hung and swung from the garment as the model walked in them. Leather board shorts—practical only for surfing the Internet—were worn with wet suit–style T-shirts. The deeper the collection got into its surf-esque references, the more blissed-out the styling became: The girls carried their shoes or slung them from backpacks. This was a collection that looked to the sport in Sportmax and rode its wave-borne source material with playful poise.