Ellsworth Kelly had the best seat in the house at today s Calvin Klein Collection show. Francisco Costa recently partnered with the 90-year-old artist; their striped shift dress, based on Kelly s 1952 canvas Red Yellow Blue White, was hanging in the windows of the Madison Avenue flagship earlier this Spring, and will soon be donated to the Costume Institute.
Today s Resort show was a continuation of that collaboration—after a fashion. Costa said the bold palette—unusual for the designer, who usually prefers neutrals—was inspired not by Kelly s paintings but by the colors he saw in his studio. An ultramarine ultrasuede apron dress was the vibrant standout, but there was also a fern-green ultrasuede coat and zip-front dress, and a rich chestnut-brown nubuck work jacket and pencil skirt.
Costa claimed Irving Penn s Small Trades book as another point of reference. In the end, though, the strongest message was the collection s seventies mood. Credit goes to all that ultrasuede. "There was a sense of lightness [to the seventies], a great spirit," he said, "but obviously we don t do it literally." True. Even in that body-beautiful era, we doubt women had the abs of steel required for Resort s spate of midriff-exposing tops. Amid all the cropped sweaters and sweatshirts we ve been seeing, Costa s harness top looked fresh. The most persuasive piece was more discreet: a black washed-silk charmeuse tank dress with just a flash of bare skin exposed in the back.
