As Four Spring 2004 Ready-to-Wear Collection on Style.com: Runway Review

As Four

REVIEW

COMPLETE COLLECTION

NEW YORK, September 13, 2003

By Laird Borrelli

As Four are almost as well known for their lifestyle (they share a communal bed in a silver-painted loft) as for their innovative silhouettes. Hard-to-miss and easy-to-love regulars on the New York City party circuit, Adi, Ange, Gabi, and Kai showcased their singular vision in the Bryant Park tents for the first time this season.

The design collective conjured a fairy-tale world, with a Ben Brunnemer soundtrack that ranged from Nico to break beats and a palette that mixed gold, pastels, and jewel tones and was embellished with amoeba-shaped paillettes and appliqués. Despite the copious amounts of Swarovski sparkle, however, shape was the most dazzling element of the show, with garments slinking, slithering, and blooming around the body in feats of engineering that recalled Paul Poiret’s famous lampshade dresses. Pants were rendered in infinite variety—enlivened with zips, twists, insets, and asymmetries—while tunics, jackets, and accessories took on an array of extravagant, organic forms. The over-the-top quotient was certainly high, but there were also plenty of wearable pieces among the Arabian Nights–style fantasy. The exotic appeal of a headdress hung with tear-shaped panels that functioned as a top, for example, was tempered by the almost classical restraint of a pleated, toga-style dress. The closing look, a fetishlike gold bodysuit that extended to the face and feet of a model who was leading (or being led by) As Four's pit bull, Powder (in matching gold capelet), proved a fittingly gilded end to a show that evidenced the group’s Midas touch.

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