The Hard Slog of Keeping a Vision

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/fashion/Oscar-de-la-Renta-and-Rodarte-in-New-York.html

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NEW YORK — How is it possible that Oscar de la Renta, at age 81, could wipe the floor with designers half his age or less — sending out a perfectly crafted, intelligent, appealing collection in his image?

The question is important, not just because Mr. de la Renta gave an opportunity last season to a younger designer, the disgraced John Galliano (though no contract has been sewn up). But also because the lack of consistency in so many shows in the New York summer 2014 season proves how much recently arrived creative artists need a mentor, or at least a vision.

A case in point is Rodarte, whose collection, based on the tacky but energetic and colorful streets of downtown Los Angeles, where the design duo live, did not seem to synch with the pioneering spirit of the designers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy, when they started their career nine years ago.

There was nothing wrong with the sexy, bright summer collection, based on animal prints that promoted the leopard and the tiger to sexual prowlers on pushup-bra tops and cheeky club dresses.

But what has happened to Rodarte’s earlier dreams: the blood-soaked colors and torn fabrics taken from a world of horror movies but turned into fascinating clothing?

Backstage, the duo said, correctly, that they had explored the northern corn fields of their sunny state in their spring 2012 collection. But if there was any California dreaming in this collection, it seemed downtown and banal.

So what did Oscar de la Renta do right? He showed tailored coats — a bit momsy, but chic, and pretty, feminine dresses with florals carefully worked in Elizabethan-style print or embroidery. His cocktail dresses, as the Happy Hour was once called, were puffy and pretty and party-worthy. And his evening gowns had the curvy bustier with swooshing skirt of a master couturier. In other words, Mr. de la Renta did what he does. Perfectly.

Narciso Rodriguez is a designer who moves forward, but always while working on a template of personal style. Everything he showed was in fashion character, using clean shapes that were far more complex in construction than they first appeared, and “decoration” that was more accurately a built-in finish using an ultramodern technique.

The rich textures on angular outfits, mostly with short, sharp hemlines, might mean merino wool, laminated linen or silk jacquard. Salmon or yellow illuminated the black and white colors.

“Rich textures and new materials,” Mr. Rodriguez said backstage. His work can be praised as artful simplicity.

Tory Burch must be credited for her consistency, though she works on contemporary clothes with a semi-reasonable price tag. The theme was the South of France, in the days when there were more fresh vegetable markets than underdressed tourists: hence, a perky floral dress accompanied by a flower-patterned bag with greenery peeping from inside.

Ms. Burch has a decency about her clothes that means that even her botanical-printed swimwear, cotton-pleated shorts or those in-between “skorts,” in a hedgerow print, suggest modesty. There is nothing in the collection that is pushed too far, which could be seen as a design weakness. But, in fact, it is Ms. Burch’s strength: clothes to like and to wear.

How different things seem at Marc by Marc Jacobs since the designer first introduced this mix-match-and-have-fun collection. The show, staged in a broken-down industrial building on the Hudson riverside, looked like it was aching to be cool. (Even if the venue itself was stifling.)

But what are these clothes but perfectly nice yet utterly forgettable sportswear? Graphic prints were of the moment — flower prints on a background less sugary than most — and pantsuits were well cut in their sporty way. Slithery flapper dresses in shiny satin or sparkling fabrics looked good for evening capers.

Like so many secondary or parallel lines from important designers, this collection seemed to have lost its fizz. Or perhaps it is just that the collection does not need this kind of presentation when Mr. Jacobs’s own line is the most eagerly awaited show of the New York Fashion Week.

Designers who do not attempt drama or presentation on a large scale can still make clothes seem appealing. Sophie Theallet is a master of painterly color and of the quirky print. This season it was the thistle that was used to created horizontal/vertical lines across simple summer dresses. That gave the designer a chance to play with rusty brown colors against her sunnier lagoon blue or mango.

There is still a lot of Azzedine Alaïa, her onetime mentor, in the full-skirted cuts and cosy knits of Ms. Theallet. But if you are following a fashion genius, why not?

At Sass & Bide, the Australian designers Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton have a challenge: Not to be put into what they call “a category or a box.” It was in that individual spirit, with the mission of speaking to the modern woman, that they sent out simple dresses that might be lapped in polka-dotted voile or decorated with flower motifs.

Almost every item had a subtle twist: a wrap of material across the hips of a pantsuit, giving the barest hint of Indian style; or glitter or sparkle on a simply cut top. After so many shows of aggravating complexity, this was a model of feminine intelligence.

Vera Wang is famous for her bridal wear and her off-kilter vision of cloth and color. But this summer collection was sober and somber, in spite of black chiffon morphing to the same ink blue on the runway. Long gauzy dresses with a touch of sportiness and mesh skirts or baseball jackets suggested a move from moody to athletic. Or, as Ms. Wang put it in her program notes, “an artful and architectural approach to clothes with a decidedly athletic reference.”

Yet a familiar gloom hung over the gauzy, asymmetrical dresses, and even the pale green and bright orange colors toward the end did not give a sense of dynamism to the collection.

What is J.Crew, the Main Street company elevated by the patronage of Michelle Obama, doing on the New York fashion list? You might say that it has just as much right as the many more obscure names showing at Lincoln Center. And “just right” is the verdict on a collection of easy sportswear pieces in fresh colors: American fashion at its most covetable and comprehensible.