Altuzarra

NEW YORK, September 12, 2009
By Nicole Phelps
Last season's impressive debut stocked the front row at Joseph Altuzarra's Spring show with retailers. They must've left happy, because he delivered on the promise of that first show, and then some.

Sensing it was time for a break with the 1980's, which have been so popular lately among young designers, he went in a more 1970's direction. Patchwork and "taking clothes apart" were his fixations for Spring, he said backstage. But we're not talking about any old hippie-dippy patchworks. Altuzarra mixed expensive white eyelet and Swiss dot with brown suede and swatches of basket weave into fitted apron dresses that didn't leave a lot to the imagination. He worked the same materials into jackets, vests, and pants that were more covered up but no less sexy.

Altuzarra designed at Givenchy under Riccardo Tisci, who's about as hot as it gets in the fashion world right now. There are clearly similarities in the hyperfeminine sensibility of both designers' clothes. But Altuzarra is no copy artist. What's such a turn-on about him is his confidence. A pair of white ponchos, one hip length, the other long, with diamond stenciling at the hems, were pretty sensational—as gutsy and cool as the Heart song playing on the soundtrack. We're betting they made the It girls in the audience suddenly rethink all of the body-con clothes currently hanging in their closets.

Style.com

Style File Blog

march 16, 2010

Shopping alert

Aurel Fixation

04:03 PM
Artist Aurel Schmidt seems to be everywhere these days, from the Whitney Biennial to the pages...

Designer update

Moschino, Sitting Pretty

02:03 PM

Trend tracking

Yea, Nay, Or Eh? It’s A Cinch

01:03 PM

more from the style file blog ›