A succession of Fashion Week shows over the weekend suggested that you’d better put down that muffin, dear. There are a lot of tight leather pants on the horizon. And leggings with little
witch booties. The female behind is again in the fore of fashion, though skinny models hardly exercise the imagination. They’re like whirling toothpicks.
Learning that a discoing sex appeal has returned to the runways is a little like hearing that Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb are reuniting. Oh, really? Alexander Wang’s collection of black biker shorts, bodysuits and motorcycle jackets with foxtail fringe — spotlighted at the Roseland Ballroom and set to the beat of “Thriller” — was surprisingly old-hat. Mr. Wang won the top young designer awards last year, including the CFDA/Vogue Fund prize.
He was not alone in having a belated epiphany that sex sells, though who can tell these days? Maybe Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai, the designers of Vena Cava, were bored with the sweet, dusky vintage looks that first brought them attention. Fair enough. But if studded tops, cutout minidresses and metallic fringe give their fall clothes a harder look, the choices aren’t interesting enough to distinguish the label. The choices, in fact, seemed wholly arbitrary.
Camilla Staerk, a Danish designer with a downtown base (she opened a shop last year on Mulberry Street), refined her tough-girl aesthetic by treating leather in a way that was both sleek and elegant. Adding black lace gave the outfits that push-pull quality. Ms. Staerk, who said she was inspired by the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, showed only a dozen looks, including a long, reedy trench coat in mannish gray wool tweed with leather insets. What was underneath? Did it matter? She makes you wonder about the woman.
Although Mr. Wang had some interesting jackets that looked sharply whittled down, with half-open backs, the heavy-handed styling made you not notice them and then finally not care. In some respects the collection seemed under the spell of Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy — not only his hard-edged chic but also the way he mentally Photoshops styles from the past into something saleable of his own.
The looming influence at Ohne Titel, another relatively new label, was Rick Owens. It was hard to ignore that the cropped, asymmetrical jackets and choppy furs are styles associated with Mr. Owens. Still, many of the form-fitting knit dresses — in a kind of raw patchwork of drab tones — were undeniably appealing, as was the streamlined effect of wearing a little zippered jacket over a matching dress. You’ll have to decide if there is too much eau de Owens.
Despite the number of foreign-born designers showing in New York, they manage to produce little variation in the prototypical woman: she’s either good or she’s bad. Jason Wu, who became famous overnight for his white inaugural gown for Michelle Obama, placed little tiaras on his models, their hair center-parted and their cheeks rosy. His women are resolutely good, with taste — rather than sex appeal — reflected in the checked wool jackets, a lapis blue sheath scattered with French knots, and a gray microcheck cashmere dress with black embroidered cap sleeves.
Mr. Wu has an eye for unusual fabrics and prints, and a light hand with construction. Those are his strengths. Without exactly duplicating the look of Oscar de la Renta, his clothes make you think of that style. This is not a negative quality; Mr. Wu’s designs seem reality-tested. But they don’t make an impression on your memory. No bad qualities show, but neither does anything stand out.
“The thinking man’s sex symbol” is how Prabal Gurung, a former assistant at Bill Blass, described his ideal woman. Before you knuckle down to Sartre, let’s just say that Mr. Gurung, a native of Nepal, has an unabashed fondness for early Saint Laurent. This registered in the cut of his trousers, his use of transparency and masculine tailoring, and his dramatic blouses. “Saint Laurent was all I knew in Nepal,” Mr. Gurung said.
That sounds like a title for a short story. It would go something like: New designer cuts through muddle and makes good sophisticated clothes.