At his fashion show after-party at the Lion, Francisco Costa said, "Calvin once told me something brilliant; he said, It s not about right or wrong, it s about the right time or the wrong time. " Well, today was the right time for Costa. He s been practicing his brand of architectural minimalism for seasons. Now that the fashion world has come back around to the less-is-more ethos, he s gone and turned out a superconfident, uncompromising collection that shows everybody else how it s done.
Costa has occasionally seemed more interested in fabric treatments than cut. For Spring he stripped everything superfluous away, focusing on proportion and fit to persuasive effect. He opened with a white racerback tank jumpsuit devoid entirely of embellishment save for a most delicate silk ribbon sashed at the waist. Anybody who ever doubted that minimalism could be sexy was instantly corrected, and the looks that followed had a similarly sensuous simplicity: Take, for instance, a loose-ish silk shift in a shocking shade of coral, or a silk crepe mid-calf dress with a plunging V-neck. A washed white silk tunic and matching cropped pants spliced by a sandy beige leather apron belt had a lot of fans at the after-party. "I saw it and it s all I want to wear," one guest said. "It wiped everything else away." Costa could probably tell you, endorsements don t come any better than that.
