subject: Calvin Klein Collection in Fall 2010 Collection [print this page] Calvin Klein Collection in Fall 2010 Collection
February is the month of the carnival for most fashion addicts. A heap of lavish feasts in New York and London had them chomping at the bit. Among them, New York fashion's torchbearer for sculptural chic, Francisco Costa, stayed the brand's course with his fall 2010 collection for Calvin Klein in consistently modernist mode.
The show opened with an oil slicked black viscose coat with a ballooned out raglan sleeve, a shape that Costa repeated throughout the collection, such as its molded, rounded shoulders and full sleeves turned up later in a double-faced wool suit jacket worn with a wrap skirt, as well as in an ivory crepe and leather long-sleeve T-shirt teamed with matching high-waisted, cropped pants.
Costa's conceptual clothes are so precise they would seem to require an engineering degree in order to execute a pattern, and thus the cut is usually the star of the show. But for fall, Costa also let texture add a welcome dose of sensuousness to his usual intellectual fare. Shearling popped up on an ivory trench and a midnight blue sequin embroidered silk jersey top had the appearance of bubble wrap. Sleek viscose cascaded like liquid silver on a column dress for evening worn by a silver haired Kristen McMenamy.
Costa also loves a good technical fabric, and here he used double faced wool for coats that were as smooth as a sleek scuba wetsuit and combined rubberized silk crepe with double faced wool in a sleeveless shift.
Though one does not go to a Calvin Klein show expecting the color palette to rock the boat this season's neutrals consisted of glossy black, ivory, silver, midnight blue and flint gray a couple of shift dresses in a day-glossy blue had the kind of impact you might imagine the first explorers to the Caribbean would have experienced upon viewing such clear blue waters.
Technically brilliant as always, there was little to fault in Costa's offerings on Thursday, except to wonder how long he will continue working in this particular modernist architectural mode. For now, a shearling coat is perhaps as postmodern as it gets.
