“To go back to my essentials.” Maybe because he just took an artistic director position at Azzaro, where he’ll be making couture, Olivier Theyskens’s instinct this season was to clarify and condense. In the past, the Belgian has been known for mid-20th-century couture shapes and neo-Edwardian romance. He taught us how to dress up again after 9/11, and he kept us in romantic frocks for most of the aughts. The essentials he was talking about this evening date from the origins of his eponymous collection three and a half years ago. He doesn’t have a big corporation behind him anymore, which is another way of saying he kept things more or less straightforward and street ready.
The first look out was an A-line black leather miniskirt with his signature hook-and-eye closures, a silky black turtleneck, and a black leather coat. The last look was a silky black turtleneck floor-length dress with long sleeves. In between, Theyskens kept the palette strict and the silhouette similarly simplified. Though there was a minimal spareness to the proceedings, he nonetheless managed to convey drama via silhouette. Short lengths are in the air, and he addressed those at the top of the show, but it was the floor-length numbers that caught the crowd’s attention in both sleeveless and long-sleeve variations. Otherwise, a pair of slightly oversized mannish pantsuits had a timely appeal. Still, let’s face it, we’ll always be looking for the frisson Theyskens so reliably produced at Rochas and later at Nina Ricci—it’s why we come back. With simplicity the order of the day here, we’ll be keeping an eye out for what he does in July at Azzaro.
