Carrying through motifs from their S/S 2014 collection, Kenzo designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon also continued their honorable collaboration with the Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE). Autumn jackets, belted one-sided, like off-kilter kimonos, were structured where spring’s were fluid. Pants suits under skirts, slender in spring, turned architectural for fall. Though the collection is not overtly marine, Kenzo’s design pair used florals reminiscent of oceanic flora. Those suit-skirt combinations could even call a mermaid’s land-bound immobility to mind.
Water associations aside, the collection’s strength is in its structure and its prints: hallmarks of its founder’s aesthetic. Multiple prints, connected in either their coloring or in their scale, made elegant patchwork. These were no found scraps, however. The damasks and silks used felt nearly sinful in their depth. It will remain to be seen whether the weighty fabrics and focused volume will translate to edgy and streetwise or skew to the drawing room set when they make it to consumers.
American filmographer and director David Lynch granted the ladylike elements a conspicuously weird vibe. As beloved as he may be to the American pop culture, though, his touches connected only barely to the refined pieces, and felt like an afterthought. Perhaps, though, the handful of shaded, dark looks, sleek where the rest of the collection was voluminous, nodded to Lynch’s most famous law enforcement officers.
by Alison Santighian
Images courtesy Style.com