subject: A Run Through The Trends [print this page] Rifat Ozbek's ''Athlete Chic'' was a succinct take on sport: mesh dresses spider man costume like elongated sports singlets; silver racing stripes; a print inspired by the wire fence of a baseball field; and fluorescent color inside nylon pleats. Glam touches included Oriental embroidery as fastenings on mesh caftans and a baseball net woven in glass beads - part of a witty multiscreen Nike Town style installation that included a heap of elegant mules instead of smelly sneakers. Some collections are just about showing clothes - but they still need a clear point of view. Genny's show started with what seemed like a positive endorsement for long hemlines for next summer, even though they don't seem to have found costume zentai many takers for this fall. Long dresses, split up the back, in gauzy fabrics, had a vacation spirit. But then the show turned into something- for-everyone: stretch denim, with silver stitching and metal eyelets; girlish dresses in sugary colors; conventional tailoring in raffia weaves, and fancy evening gowns with sun-ray tucks on the bodice. Iceberg's vision was even more bland: a run through the trends from a white opening of sports-inspired clothes with zigzag decoration, through punched and slit leather to the show's highlight: geometric patterns on knit and cloth. The art-fashion craze has a lot to answer for. It encouraged Krizia to send out a dress strung with hospital-drip spandex zentai tubing, what looked like silver spaghetti plunked on the bosom and metal wires creating waves through sleeves. These tiresome tricks compounded the irritation of watching models trailing loose strings from waist or hemline, presumably as a take on the sporty drawstrings that appeared on regular linen cargo pants or wrapped apron dresses that might have some chance in modern fashion's race.
