Backstage at Narciso Rodriguez, there was a board with all of the show s looks on it. Not just the front view, but the side and back too. Season by season, Rodriguez s fixations shift. They re subtle changes, for sure, but he delights in them. And when he s good, as he was here, his customers delight in them, too. After the leggy rigor of Rodriguez s Spring show, he s loosened the silhouette up a bit. It wasn t quite slouchy, but there was a nice sense of movement in pieces like a red wool cocoon coat roomy enough for a substantial sweater underneath, and in a breezy silk dress in oxidized bronze and the faintest mint green that will feel good against bare skin when these clothes arrive in stores midsummer. On Rodriguez s structured jackets, the front was quite rigorous with arcing lines crisscrossing the torso, while the back had a forgiving, slightly rounded shape (hence the 360-degree views on the board). The ivory one in particular looked like a good match for Scandal s Olivia Pope. Other jackets were cut almost like cardigans, a point Rodriguez emphasized by lining the interior with different colors. One lapel on a gray wool jacket flapped open to reveal color-blocked blush and saffron; the other was charcoal and navy. It s the inside of clothes we re talking about. Does anybody else work as hard on such details?
The great thing about Rodriguez s work here is that the results didn t feel effortful. Someone spent a very, very long time attaching tiny bugle beads to a sleeveless shift dress. And the way the titanium, platinum, and bronze-colored beads were embroidered made them glow like poured metal. From where we were sitting, it looked a future heirloom, and yet it slipped on and fit like a favorite oversize T-shirt.
