Michael Kors.. New York Collections .. fall 2013

“Look out look out chicken little the sky is falling!!!”  Something is coursing through New York during fashion week, well actually for months since these collections aren’t built in a day or week, and it seems to be affecting even the most confident and usually pitch perfect of designers and that is the dreaded … HEAVY HAND!

I have been a fan of Michael Kors for years and years and I never have a question in my mind about why he is successful.  He provides women with beautifully made slick all American clothes.  He has managed to find himself f in a league with some of America’s world class designers such as Ralph Lauren and even Oscar de la Renta.  Kors is usually a bit more fashion than Ralph and a bit more modern and clean than Oscar, but no matter as the clothes resonate with women all over the world and the company has the sales to prove it.

Unfortunately this season I found the clothes to be more on the clumsy side and less on the clean modern easy to wear side.  The stand away silhouettes may be fine as part of the collection but those shapes seem to overtake the runway.  I, personally, have great difficulty with marigold yellow as well as community service orange which also seemed to permeate through the collection.  While I love zippers as ornament and for utility reasons, Michael... you gotta know when to say die.  He might have single handedly cornered the market on steel zippers and used them on anything and everything he could.  I am a great fan of camo patterns but I got this uneasy feeling  when I saw this much of it here and even a bit  queasier when it turned up magnified  in blue  and grey  and  in fur.  Too many gimmicks and tricky skirts didn’t help the situation.

The best part of the presentation, for me was a brief moment of salt n pepper tweeds followed by a few black pieces.  I was shattered by the proposition of the taffeta over skirts which at best looked as if they were an afterthought let alone the a Project Runway assigment Where were the sexy covered up or bare sinuous columns in cashmere and jersey that have become a hallmark of the brand.  Michael has always managed to make covered up styles look so clean modern and sexy and yet there was little evidence of that today.  A high slit does not make something sexy.  The blown up hound’s-tooth was a cute idea but it came off looking like black tie pajamas and I do not mean of the palazzo pajama variety.

The take away here is that the collection is passable but surely not memorable.  I am reasonably sure that the collection will perform at retail but as with any designer and any show, I was hoping for a bit of wow and fabulous … alas that did not happen today.