Ask a fashion person what Joseph Altuzarra is known for, what he does best, and nine times out of 10 they ll tell you a pencil skirt with a thigh-high slit. Having a signature is essential to success on sales floors, but you have to know when to pivot, too. That s what Altuzarra did for Resort with his miniskirt. There was only one, but the black-and-white-check mini with buttons up one seam and, yes, a small slit up the other, added a youthful bit of cool to his sexy, sophisticated lineup. It made an impression on the editors assembled in his showroom this morning.
Pivoting wasn t the whole story though. Altuzarra also devoted a fair bit of energy to reworking past hits, less so his pencil-skirt silhouettes, although there were many of those, and more so fabrics that look familiar from previous collections. The pied de poule from his Rosemary’s Baby show was reimagined as a structured stretch cady pantsuit; the tie-dye technique he used for Spring ’16, and which you see in fashionable spots all over town, became a print that he used for a pleated skirt and a shirtdress.
“I didn t want ‘a huge look,’ but things women want to wear every day,” he said, as the models made their exits. The Resort equivalents of the aforementioned Spring tie-dye we re seeing everywhere? If we had to hazard a guess, we’d bet it’ll be the navy knit dress he spliced with a red lace–trimmed slip dress. Everyday-ness also came across in the way he paired a collectible studded sweater with a sequined lace skirt. Both of them are precious enough on their own, but teamed up they captured an offhand cool similar to that of his new miniskirt.
