Batsheva derives its strength from its single-mindedness. The high-neck, nipped waist, ruffle sleeve, full skirt dress that made designer Batsheva Hay’s career is still one of her most valuable and desired propositions. Making the singular, instantly identifiable item was how Hay made it, but now she has to keep making it and remaking it, and creatively, she’s moved on. Her favorite item from her last collection was a smock-like, tented dress. “Nobody bought it,” she says. But she loved it nonetheless.
That smock frock has been reborn as a housecoat in velveteen leopard and crimson moiré for pre-fall. It’s one emblem of Batsheva’s new aesthetic for the season, an aesthetic defined by a wide range of away-from-the-body silhouettes. “That’s how I want to dress now,” Hay says. And what Hay wants—and who Hay is—remains the backbone of Batsheva, even if her taffeta confections have become favorites of the celeb set. Pre-fall is a compromise of sorts. New, loose shapes abound, like a high-neck smock dress with golden buttons and menswear-ish separates like a Western work shirt and a chore coat. Hay’s choice of fabrics—a mix of vintage quilting materials and unlikely fashion candidates like burnout velvets and suit linings—keeps a continuity between her twirly circle skirts and more structured day dresses. Her familiar fit and flare silhouette is still in play, now in light and short shapes, which could appeal to new clients, ones that, maybe, saw Natalie Portman or Beanie Feldstein in a Batsheva number and want to get the look themselves.
There are also stretchy pants, base layer turtlenecks, and vinyl rain jackets in colors and prints that range from acid green to all-over orange fruits. No matter how many new ideas she tries, Hay’s personal obsessions guarantee that her singular voice will remain unique.
