“It was about an immediacy really,” said Karl Templer of this Ports 1961 pre-fall collection: “They’re archetype pieces in a way but then, when you take a second glance and you study them carefully, you observe that there’s a lot of craftsmanship gone into each piece.” Templer worked to offer his customers the fundamentally familiar spiked with a tantalizing jolt of the unfamiliar—remixed through design and ingenious craft just enough to trigger that consumer-Pavlovian salivation for newness.
Prime examples here included biker jackets grafted into herringbone wool to create hybrid zip-up minidresses, and a luxury utilitarian blouson and parka imprinted with the ribcage fossils of military frogging. Eco-cashmere was shaped into dresses and slips punctuated with panels of cable-knit and horizontal stripes of silk chiffon tufting. Wide woven white cashmere stitching provided contrast on slick black leather shirting and minidresses. A loosely tailored blue pinstripe suit, archetype 101, was degenericized by slicing into the sleeves. That slip-dress silhouette returned in expanded volume thanks to a faux fur fabrication.
Foil to that outline were the riding boots and Chelsea boots with chains that underpinned Templer’s structures. This was a precisely focused collection that delivered arrestingly developed variations on can’t-go-wrong favorites.
