The arrival of a new baby, his third with his husband, kept Joseph Altuzarra off the New York Fashion Week calendar in September. But behind the scenes everything went according to schedule; The clothes in these photos have been sold to buyers since May and part of the collection will hit stores next month. It was designed in the same spirit as his autumn catwalk show, which marked a creative turning point, with the rejection of ‘total look’ fashion and an emphasis on individual style. During a showroom appointment, he said a pine green cropped suede jacket and a long cotton chino skirt, which together illustrate his new, more irreverent and more pragmatic approach, were among the season’s bestsellers among his wholesalers.
“The overarching thing we were working on this season was literature,” he explained. Altuzarra reads a lot of fiction and maintains a book club; Remarkably bright creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah are two recent lectures. On the clothes, his love of books translated into papery textures, folding details and prints, such as the marble motif that decorated a shirt dress, and body paintings à la Yves Klein that appeared on otherwise minimal casings. Other pieces were printed with fantastic images of creatures skimming over waves and mountain peaks, the result of a cadavre exquis project in which the design studio took part. And the exaggerated cotton eyelet that adorned the ruffled neckline of a flowing silk dress was inspired by paper crafts of the kind most of us will remember from making snowflakes in art class.
Swapping a sense of control for a sense of play can make for tricky fashion, but Altuzarra kept his designs rooted in recognizable archetypes. For example, the papery yarns were used for aran sweaters, while airy organza skirts with origami-like folding details were paired with neat, tailored jackets with the defined waists of the New Look. “We still wanted it to feel like it was about a lot of different people,” Altuzarra said. He gave his imagination free rein with an evening dress with an “almost Renaissance hip construction” and ruffles at the shoulder line that are reminiscent of bird wings. A look – and a collection – with a lot of main character energy.