Michael Bastian s menswear inspiration this season was the husbands of Marilyn Monroe—Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, specifically—and that led to a campaign and film (you can watch it here). That in turn raised the question of what their "Marilyn" was going to wear. What started as a few pieces for this supporting role grew into an entire line, and today Bastian debuted his first collection for women alongside the menswear he designs for Gant.
The man has a deep sense of theater. He showcased the clothes this time around in posed tableaux along fifties-bombshell/slugger lines. Clustered groups of men and women lounged about in movie theater seats and leaning up on stretches of fence, dressed in staples of midcentury prep: chic little trenches, seersucker and madras, navy lace blouses, and—playing to Bastian s fetish for athletics—gym shorts and locker room sweats. (Here and there were atmospheric props: a pile of vintage typewriters, some radio mics, a bunch of inner tubes.) For Fall, tailoring was limited mainly to separates, but Bastian s now making affordable suits, too, in cropped piqué for the ladies, classic khaki for the gents. (He s not, by the way, making them alone. His longtime publicist, Eugenia Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui, is assisting on the womenswear designs.)
The danger of going the dramatic route is that productions are costumed, not clothed. But that wasn t a problem here: The looks will break down nicely into affordable, individual items with barely a whisper of Marilyn or Joltin Joe. For proof, Bastian offered Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui herself, whom he calls one of the chicest women in New York. She wore a pretty blouse in broderie anglaise, a Spring piece that was also on display not 20 feet away. She paired hers with tiny denim cutoffs and a high suede combat boot that was very 2010.
