There s something about looking at Jasmin Shokrian s latest Draft No. 17 collection that raises questions about the nature of gender in fashion design. Shokrian s Draft No. 17 label is the increasingly popular diffusion line of her eponymous mainline, and she uses it as a platform for making sculptural clothes that are accessible both in terms of aesthetic and price. This puts Shokrian in a category that broadly includes designers such as Maria Cornejo, Mary Ping, Victoria Bartlett of VPL, Leana Zuniga of Electric Feathers, and Mona Kowalska of A Détacher. This is one movement in American fashion driven by women. Why? And more importantly, why aren t these clothes seen more, and these designers talked about more? Somewhere in the answers to those questions lurks the answer to another one, which is: Why hasn t American fashion produced its own Phoebe Philo?
Anyway, about the collection. This season, Shokrian has struck a fine balance between clothes that are easy to wear and appealing and her own predilection for challenging construction. The silhouettes here are relaxed without being slouchy; instead, Shokrian relies on loose draping, wide-leg shapes, and elements such as kimono-belting to give everything a laid-back feeling. Some of the pieces feel slightly monastic, such as a pair of super-wide-leg trousers cropped just above the ankle, but it s a tone Shokrian nicely sets off with flirty touches like short hemlines on skirts and the open back on a sheerish chiffon blouse. On her more tailored pieces, her sculptural construction has a feminizing effect—to wit, the petal-shaped hip on a circle-hemmed pencil skirt. (Ever attuned to the functional aspect of her clothes, Shokrian has cut the petals to contain pockets.) All in all, this is a collection destined to improve on the momentum that Draft No. 17 has already picked up at retail.
