Brian Wolk and Claude Morais are at their best when they re taking cues from their Williamsburg circle. Nothing like a bunch of girlfriends to tell you like it is. This season they made the mistake of looking not at their pals, but at the work of Petrus Christus, a portrait painter who was active in Bruges in the 1400s. That s going way back. The flirty printed minidresses of Ruffian s last collection were replaced here by long black dresses as somber as monks robes, accessorized by stiff white ruffs that heightened their costumey aspects. Fortunately, it wasn t all quite that dour. Luminous color combinations—cardinal red with Wedgwood blue, chartreuse and blush pink—lifted things up, as did a unicorn tapestry print. You could see one of their Brooklyn girls in their drawstring-waist digital-print pants (the same print as the unicorns, only zoomed in 400 times). But overall their fabrics tended to have a stiffness that didn t do the formality of their silhouettes any favors. After their youthful Spring outing, this felt like a comedown.
