Siouxsie Sioux turned Swiss Miss. That was the broad outline of Tsumori Chisato s Fall collection, inspired by a holiday in Switzerland. The backdrop of a ski slope was rendered in neon squiggles, and there were bright slashes of color on the high sides of models back-combed hair.
The clothes merged a DIY spirit with classic après-ski. The punky checkerboard print, mixed with intarsia ski sweaters, looked painted on, and Chisato s new version of the Fair Isle cardie came with naïve little appliquéd flowers, the kind of thing a melancholy but industrious teenager might do in her bedroom.
Then there s Chisato s personal touch, quite literally DIY. Her personal tic was an obsession with the gondola cars of ski lifts, knit into intarsias and lovingly picked out in sequins on a sweater dress. And all the photo prints of chalets, snow-covered treetops, and slopes—on dresses and one fab pair of jeans—were the designer s vacation snaps.
Chisato was a touch less cartoony than she s been in seasons past, but there was no lack of her infectiously charming eye for detail that make her clothes stand out. You aren t likely to find a crocheted V-neck with abstracted evergreen motifs and dotted with tiny crystals like snowflakes. Tropical islands last season, Alpine slopes this one, Tsumori Chisato has been in a peripatetic state of mind. Wherever the next journey takes her, her fans will be ready for its unique crop of souvenirs.
