April 16, 2013 |
If, last season, Calvin Klein was all about the waist, then this season, too, Calvin Klein is all about the waist. Think of it as an evolution of an idea. The idea of the waist. In this case, the waist has morphed from being graphic and angular to something more rounded and feminine. If, last season, Francisco Costa defined it with a seam that ran down the torso and flared out in an A-line shape over the hips, creating an almost-geometric shape, thanks to the stiffness of the bonded fabrics, this season it was much softer. The waists have been created in pretty much the same way. A mixture of seams and darts that narrow towards the waist and then flare out over the hip. Except that the fabric glides over the hips more than flares over them. It moulds itself to them, creating a rounded shape. It’s very voluptuous. Apparently, Francisco looked at 1940s pin-ups. And Gilda. Her dress. You can see Gilda in these dresses. They are womanly. Womanly isn’t something that Calvin Klein is usually known for. They’re more waifish. And yet here is a siren. The dress has all the hallmarks of a corseted creation but none of the actual corsetry. It’s almost like a feat of engineering. A cleverly spliced and put-together jigsaw of seams and fabric. You would expect that in order to create such shapes the fabric needs to be heavy, and yet it is weightless. Soft. With a touch of stiffness. Bonded layers curve in such a way you almost expect them to have been shaped using a blowtorch. Gazars and satins, layered over one another to create panels of sheerness, also added to the feeling of weightlessness, with light shining through the filmy fabrics and bouncing off the satins, thereby producing the illusion of a water ripple or of the girls being cocooned in molten metal. Maybe mercury. Mercury has the same light-reflective, quicksilver qualities as the fabrics here. You could, in fact, quite easily believe that they’re wearing molten metal not fabric. That if you reached out to touch one of the dresses you would be surprised to find your hand come away clean. Uncoated. But that’s the point. To reach out and touch it. What’s the point of a dress if no one is going to reach out and touch you while you’re wearing it?
by Natalie Dembinska
