So I know you’re not supposed to count your chickens before they hatch. And, if I can turn my own phrase here, you don’t judge a flower by its bud. Or a butterfly by its caterpillar. I get all that. So for all those idiomatic reasons, I will largely turn a blind eye to most of the notes I took tonight at The Emerging Trends 2009 fashion show, because those designer dudes and ladies are, well, emerging. They’re new to this big, bad world of fashion, just learning how to balance on two well-heeled feet, and the last thing they need is the wagging of my trivial finger. So, of the 14 designers whose sartorial works paraded down the runway at the Park Plaza Hotel tonight, I won’t mention the ones under whose names I (quite literally) wrote WHAT THE F--- in big bold letters with many underlines beneath. Instead, I’ll do you all a favor: I’ll just throw out a couple key names, which you can then tuck neatly away in your brain into that cranial folder I’m sure you’ve got called “People to Watch.” Here goes:
Name: Caitlin Allen
Reason to Watch: Are you a Nantucket prepster looking to fill your closet with something a little more edgy than stacks of Vineyard Vines? Kindly point your Wayfarer-framed peepers at Allen’s collection of lightweight, country-club-bound clothes that do a twist on pastel prim (think: bright pops of color to complement the dewy hues, and playful rompers to offset proper blouses).
Name: Nadia Ivanova
Reason to Watch: This co-ed summery collection was cohesive, inventive, and made me want to hop a quick flight to St. Tropez (suitcase crammed full of N.A.I., her latest line). Plus, as our own Scott Kearnan pointed out in a Fashion Week post from earlier this week, “new and exciting” and “menswear” tend to be mutually exclusive. Scott, good news: Ms. Ivanova has got just the strong dose of menswear that your style doctor ordered.
Name: J’aime Lizotte
Reason to Watch: After several covetable body-con minis and mesh-inlayed frocks pranced by, this NY-based designer’s line closed out with what was maybe my favorite piece of the night: a black and nude bodysuit with sharp statement shoulders that was just begging to be tucked into a pair of denim skinnies (preferably mine, of course).
Miss Massachusetts 2009 hosted the swank soiree, but, pretty as she may have been, her bubblegum-pink Southern-belle pageant dress upstaged her good looks with an overwhelming bout of ugly. Hair and make-up on the models seemed to be the saving grace of unsalvageable fashion train wrecks, though some of the long-legged ladies couldn’t catwalk to save their lives. But hey — what are you going to do? If they could, they’d probably be in New York by now… sad as that truth may be.
And some of the night’s designers might also make it to those bigger fashion shows yet (read: Bryant Park), and we’ll be proud to say we had ’em here first if they do. As for the others… perhaps a couple more years in the cocoon will help. Or, I don’t know, a career change. Just a thought.
