Before the Akris show began Albert Kriemler was backstage walking through the racks, pulling individual looks, and offering them up for inspection. Kriemler’s clothes are subtle compared to much of what we see on the Paris runways, and their nuance is best appreciated at close range. Even better if you can hold them in your hands.
Today, he was talking up his many different kinds of cashmere: pebble cashmere, cashmere silk rib, cloud cashmere (not mohair or alpaca, he pointed out, but pure brushed cashmere), cashmere lined with silk, cashmere jersey, loop cashmere. Though the show notes didn’t specify, it seems likely that the baseball hats that several of the models wore were cashmere too. You get the picture; these clothes and accessories feel wonderful—like a warm embrace.
Texture was one of the collection’s main attractions, whether the see-through micro stripe embroidery of a nearly weightless cape, the “dual” sequins that changed from black to silver and back again with the brush of a hand on a fitted dress, or the lacquered lace of a floor-length dress that caught the light as it glides down the runway. Another attraction was the clothes’s functionality. Kriemler pointed out a double-face coat that separated into a long vest and a cropped jacket (a nod to unpredictable weather) and maxi skirts that were actually full-legged pants, and thus a bit more practical.
Last but not least among Kriemler’s considered details were the digital prints he made of the Swiss artist Katalin Deér’s analog photograms, which he discovered at a recent Basel art fair. Deér uses neither a camera nor negatives to get her effects, but light sensitive paper, colored light, and glass tubes. Kriemler used the prints for both weightless caftans in silk georgette and long and short coats in more substantial fabrics like double-face wool and wool gabardine. The results were more graphic and abstract than some of his more literal interpretations of his favorite artworks. These would get you noticed across a room.
