Just when it seemed clothes couldn t get any more complicated, Jil Sander came along with a collection that blew away the fuss like a clean spring breeze. Take her opening look: a white jacket with a blue roller-print marking on the front, tucked into a cream pencil skirt, and worn with flats. Boring? Not at all—more like artistic simplicity. It takes world-class talent to give the elements of every day—shirts, blazers, pants, raincoats—a good name in the fashion book.
Normal clothes like these haven t had much attention since Helmut Lang, Miuccia Prada, and Sander herself defined nineties minimalism. Now she s doing it again, but this time with color, surface decoration, a relaxed sense of femininity, and none of her earlier tendency to abstruse abstraction. What woman wouldn t fall for a taupe trench, slightly A-line, with a couple of big chic brass buttons? Or a frilled shirt, a flattering pair of wide cuffed pants, a one-button jacket brilliantly cut in turquoise? You d hardly expect frills in this formerly austere environment, but Sander added softness (say, a scarf tied in a bow) and turned one of her beloved techno-fabrics (an ultra-luxurious neo-taffeta) into a small-waisted weightless white coat with a tulle skirt sticking out beneath the oval skirt.
Sander gave the trend toward ethnic influence a glance with an ikat-like computerized placement print, but there was no sense that she was leaning heavily on a theme. Interesting, light-handed sportswear is enough for her—and in overwrought times like these, that looks like a breakthrough.
