Look 1
Look 2
Look 3
Look 4
Look 5
Look 6
Look 7
Look 8
Look 9
Look 10
Look 11
Look 12
Look 13
Look 14
Look 15
Look 16
Look 17
Look 18
Look 19
Look 20
Look 21
Look 22
Look 23
Look 24
Look 25
Look 26
Look 27
Look 28
Look 29
Look 30
Look 31
Look 32
Look 33
Look 34
Look 35
Look 36
Look 37
Look 38
Look 39
Look 40
Look 41
Look 42
Look 43
Look 44
Look 45
Look 46
Look 47
Look 48
Look 49
Look 50
Look 51
Look 52
Look 53
Look 54
Look 55
Look 56
Look 57
Look 58
Look 59
Look 60
Look 61
Look 62

Khaite

Pre-Fall 2023 RTW

--
Critic Score
No Reviews
--
Consumer Score
No Reviews

Consumer Reviews

There are no consumer reviews yet. Try submitting one above.

Properties

Date: January 17, 2023
Location: New York, United States
Looks: 62
Brand: Khaite
URL: wwd.com

Critic Reviews

By Emily Mercer for WWD

“Every time we talk about our woman, it’s very stealth, fast, strong, confident and with this one, we went in a darker direction,” Khaite’s Catherine Holstein said during a preview of her pre-fall collection. The creative director’s collections are built upon that New York attitude — with touches of nostalgia fueled by Holstein’s reconnection with forming her aesthetic identity.

Her pre-fall collection offered this balance through a sharp, minimalist ‘90s mindset (including a mostly neutral palette, with soft shots of color) with a bit of ‘80s quirk and plenty of “slightly sadistic,” sexy twists. Case in point: her latest structured black blazer with tight, nipped-in waist (offered in both black leather and melton wool) with sleek, zip-front pencil skirt and S&M meets quirky shearling lace-up sandals with gold chain details — talk about power dressing.

“About 70 percent of our fabrics are rollover, we design into the fabrics that our customer comes back to us for, so it’s about how we’re reinventing and elevating every season,” Holstein said. Her leather (noted to account for about 10 percent of her business, in ready-to-wear alone), suede and structured melton wool tailoring came in sleek new proportions (spanning from menswear-inspired outerwear to bustier minidresses); merino sweaters were paired with pleated skirts and shirt dresses (in both sheer organza or in silk twill with a familiar, cheeky lip print), toughened up with thigh-high, snake stamped leather boots, and the season’s trendy polo came in roomy, elongated proportions to be worn as a minidress or atop her sweet but sensual godet slipdresses.

Having been named Womenswear Designer of the Year at November’s CFDA Fashion Awards and with retail openings on the horizon, Holstein is coming into the new year maintaining her self-proclaimed “insatiable appetite” for design.

“We’re very ambitious, sometimes I don’t feel we stop enough to smell the roses, if you will. I think there’s high expectations of the brand from both an investor and internal point of view, so considering how ambitious we are, I don’t think anything could have taken that and elevated it. But it’s definitely an absolute honor; I did not expect to win,” she said of her CFDA award.

By Nicole Phelps for Vogue

Khaite has recently moved into new offices in lower Manhattan. On the 9th floor of a NoHo building, the corner space offers blocks-long views east and south, as well as into nearby penthouses. You couldn’t ask for a New York-ier spot. That’s fitting for designer Catherine Holstein, who takes style cues from the dark glamour of the city circa the ’80s and ’90s. “That independent, New York, strong, stealth woman—that is who I’m designing for,” she said at her show in September.

The pre-fall Khaite collection is very much in keeping with that spirit. In these moodily lit pictures Vittoria Ceretti models sculpted double-breasted jackets, lace-bodice silk slip dresses, and long leather trenches. The codes of cosmopolitan after-dark dressing don’t fluctuate all that much from decade-to-decade, even if Netflix and chilling has replaced nightclubbing as city denizens’ preferred pastime.

One surprise was the collection’s painted lip print; its cheeky whimsy lightened up a midi-length slip dress. This being a pre-collection, Holstein put more emphasis on before-dark dressing than she does on her runways. The silhouettes that were particularly convincing—that are likely to turn up in the offices she sees out her windows—include a long v-neck cashmere sweater whose hem gathers the precise pleats of the skirt worn beneath it, and an organza polo neck top worn over another breezy pleated skirt. Holstein duplicates all of her leather pieces in easier-on-the-wallet wool, and the wool version of an oversize bomber, heavy on the zip details, looked good too.

The designer had a stealth wedding in December, and there are two looks here that could tempt a Khaite-loving bride. The first is shirred white mesh, body-con and sexy; the second is sheer organza and faille over a delicate slip. She has the “something blue” covered too, in the form of low-heeled leather pumps and a playful shearling lined plastic sandal.