Karla Spetic deals in a sheer sportiness. This season, she had a decidedly more saccharine focus, slicing and dicing up girly accents like pouf sleeves and oversize florals into second-skin tops or transparent blouses with geometric panels. The results were more funny than fashionable. Where Spetic’s sensibility shined was in semi-sheer trenchcoats and trousers in ’70s plaids. With oversize shapes and wriggling lines, the pieces had a bold perversity to them that reminded this reviewer, at least, of the wholesome kinkiness of Rei Kawakubo’s lumps and bumps collection of Spring 1997, now on view at the Met. Let’s hope Spetic’s posse of Aussie girls are willing to ride her more subversive wave of cool.
