Sandwiched between so many collections billing themselves as that most nebulous of things, "edgy," an offering like ADEAM s New York runway debut runs the risk of feeling quaint in its primness. And yet, even with her hyper-feminine forms, designer Hanako Maeda carried off a collection both ladylike and relevant. Perhaps that was thanks in part to her Nobel Prize-winning inspiration, Yasunari Kawabata s 1935 novel Snow Country. While Maeda drew on both the male and female protagonists (a dilettante writer and a geisha), clearly it was the latter that won out in the end. The palette leaned heavily on delicate powder pink and icy dove gray; there were plenty of floaty yet structured party frocks. A custom brocade with a camellia print was particularly pretty, and things got a bit more femme fatale with a fitted black number that had an asymmetrical silver fox trim. Nods to the Western men s-tailoring craze that had swept Japan by the thirties were relatively surreptitious, and should please the woman who doesn t typically go for androgynous designs.
