“Left or standing. Standing or left standing.” The phrase heard over and over again during Narciso Rodriguez’s show, as it turns out, was an installation piece by the artist Bruce Nauman in which guests had to walk through a trapezoidal room filled with yellow fluorescent light. But while Nauman’s desire was to create anxiety, the collection itself was anything but. Instead, it was easily Rodriguez’s best: chic, intelligent and, in true Narciso style, sublimely architectural.
With a clean and uncluttered palette, Rodriguez was left to focus on elements like color, cut and visual appearance. Of particular strength were a series of gray-on-gray wool plaid pieces that were fitting for Michelle Obama. It was a tight focus from beginning–a long black vest with a wide gray stripe down the front–to the finale silk dresses patchworked with squares, rectangles and trapezoids and sheer overlay. While violet, red, pink and copper did permeate throughout the collection, they did so in muted, seemingly watered-down, shades.
Images from style.com
