Mark Fast collections do have a tendency to bring out a person s puritanical scold. That skirt is too short. Those clothes are see-through. That is a bathing suit, not a dress! At this point, you can only assume that Fast banks on this effect; today s show, not atypically, seemed designed to provoke. Not the hip-hop references in the styling, which in another setting would have looked fresh; it was the way, all his own, that Fast played peekaboo with the clothes themselves that felt contrived to shock. It s not inconceivable that he could have emphasized the more conservative pieces in a way that would have made a realistic case for the Mark Fast point of view. If you looked closely, you encountered not a few garments here that worked, like the mix-and-matchable skintight skirts and a fringed, mint-colored tank dress. Meanwhile, the knit bras sit easily within the emerging trend for bandeaux and crop tops, and his little pastel cardigans actually read a little twee. Anyway, Fast—as usual—tried to make his collection look as outré as possible. Why? Who knows. But he ought to up the ante: It s getting hard to shock that inner scold.
