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Chris Benz

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NEW YORK, September 13, 2010
By Matthew Schneier
Chris Benz doesn't do quiet. His clothes (and his shows) are joyfully, sometimes dizzyingly loud. Whatever his inspiration of the moment—and for this moment, it's Americans in Paris, circa the sixties—volume is a constant. A trapeze minidress in traffic-cone orange leather? It's practically a fire alarm.

Shrinking violets, in other words, need not apply. Benz likes dressing to be fun, and the girls who love his clothes do, too. (Judging from the attendees at his presentation today, that pack includes such disparate dollies as Carmen Electra, Denise Richards, Kelly Osbourne, and Real Housewife of New Jersey Caroline Manzo, fellow foghorns all.) Scattered over sales floors, many of the pieces he showed should do very well; even Plain Jane would bloom in a pair of Benz's electric blue floral cigarette pants, worn here with matching platform mules by Alejandro Ingelmo. Fuller skirts and some wider pant legs hit the mood of the moment, and the pleated A-line minis were properly cute. Once again, Benz worked with Loro Piana on his knits, which were judiciously restrained. They had a funny way of sticking with you, actually; when the neon was limited to piping on a polo or small blocks on a bikini bandeau, it packed more punch. This being the Lincoln Center season—Benz showed at the complex's airy atrium—one might've wished a conductor had been consulted. Ask one, and he'll tell you: Nobody plays the whole symphony cranked up to 11.

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