At Bassike, ease does not equal simplicity—quite the opposite, in fact. Creative director Deborah Sams constructs her garments with an engineer’s rigor, darting and ruching and pinching fabric around the body to construct her signature Bassike slouch. For Resort 2020, Sams said goodbye to a lot of that with a collection founded on color and a childlike naiveté. Shown in the dining room of Sydney’s the Apollo restaurant, the Resort collection was a departure not just for its freewheeling spirit, but also for the fact that it was the first time in ages that Bassike had been shown in a runway format. Typically Sams and her cofounder Mary Lou Ryan conduct one-on-one appointments to really instruct and explain their high-concept shapes. On the catwalk, their innate ease was put to the test: Could Bassike make the formality (and sometimes flippancy) of a runway show seem cool?
Atmosphere played a big part, with the restaurant’s raw, concrete walls serving to downplay the stiffness of a runway show. Sams’s clothing, too, had a decidedly more chill spirit, with large, loose shapes and vivacious, playful colors. Tank dresses with swooping U necklines, jersey tee dresses in kelly green and black, and smock frocks with a leaf green splatter dye print were some of the collection’s flirtier items—not usually a spirit associated Bassike. Ditto a black bra top, layered over a lemon yellow tee, and a backless tan leather dress. If a little strictness and boyishness were lost in these oversize, vacation-ready silhouettes, the unbleached tie-dyes and oversize anorak tops made up for it. Call it consumer-base expanding—picked apart there’s a lot of different things to love from Bassike’s latest.