Tadashi Shoji doesn t start with complex concepts, instead preferring fairly concrete ideas. Resort: mermaids. For Spring: Venice s Ca d Oro. This season: airplanes. Bam. And indeed, Shoji s Pre-Fall debut was a straightforward enough interpretation of some of the elements of flight mechanics. In dresses, neoprene and leatherette were laser-cut into a frothy nothingness that, on closer inspection, was a pattern riffing on plane gears and propellers. It was a pretty proposition in A-line dresses, but when used in eveningwear, it didn t quite transcend its fabrication; despite neoprene s ubiquity in the twenty-teens, it s a tall order to make it feel truly luxe. Elsewhere, gowns came decked out in pearlescent sequins, like rows of rivets. Ribbed and zigzagging knits had plenty of potential: Merely suggesting motion, they proved a less heavy-handed path to Shoji s chosen theme.
