Courtesy Style.com
Victoria Bartlett showed a terrific VPL collection yesterday. Outfits were both completely form fitting yet proportionless. Bartlett used boiled wools to create belted shift dresses and bandage tops and skirts. The fabrics were sheer, with lots of skin on display.
There was something very Phoebe Philo of Céline in the cuts of the leather jackets. The a-symmetrical coats, in iron oxide, burnt orange, steel and bordeaux, were vivid. Bartlett looked to the sculptures of Piero Manzoni and Joseph Beuys for inspiration. The skeletal and muscular interpretations were evident in Bartlett's jersey dresses, hanging almost weightlessly on the shoulders of her models. They draped beautifully, creating pleats and creases down the chest. Before the show Bartlett told me that she wanted to juxtapose a hard structure and shape with a sort of lightness. "They fight each other, but interacting them together in a harmony so you get the sharpness and edges and sensual elements of folding and the origami sensibility and then the stretching and folding of supple membrane like fabrics," she said.
She hit that perfectly in her 49 look show. The finale walk saw models changed into all new undergarments. The rubberized bras and underwear was set under feathered body armor and sculpted capes. These too took on Bartlett's steel and rust tones. They were fantastical, just as the designer hoped. "In a way it's a non reality, it's a fantasy," Bartlett said. "So I always love to go there."
