NY Fashion Week Review-Ohne Titel

Here is one of the reviews I wrote for the L report which the editor then proceeded to steal by erasing my name and slapping hers on it

Ohne Titel, German for "untitled," is the name of Parson's School of Design graduates Flora Gill and Alexa Adams' new label.

Spring 2008 is their maiden collection and from their design proposition, they are a promising new force in the fashion horizon.

With innovative, yet impeccable tailoring and construction reminiscent of seminal Japanese designers like Issey Miyake, Yohi Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, striking graphic tribal prints and accessories in raffia, the 80's influence in the collection echoes throughout all the designs.

Ohne Titel definitely showed some of the most novel shapes in pants both as separates and in the context of pantsuits.

The exacting beauty of the tailoring in the jackets is to me one of the main selling points in this collection. The designers are so masterful in the command of tailoring techniques, that they can create a perfect jacket and then further elaborate the thesis in the design with asymmetrical hems and closings but without compromising the precision of the fit. The fit of the jackets is architectural yet relaxed and comfortable, exactly what a jacket should be and I had only seen before in Helmut Lang's collections.

The jackets are paired with new incarnations of 80's shapes like the harem pant or the stovepipe crating pantsuits that are immensely wearable and in my opinion, timeless like a Noguchi piece of sculptural furniture.

Ohne Titel is very much a collection that refers to art and architecture.

Their prints were inspired by totemic art and the work of French painter Jean Dubuffet.

Their skirts and dresses are softer and feminine, yet when contrasted with their jackets they provide today's working women with the most refreshing and exciting options since Duran Duran ruled the airwaves with 'Rio" and Nagel, Basquiat and Haring changed our collective sensibility with their visions of raw urban beauty.

Ohne Titel aims to appeal to that same edgy, yet functional intellectual sensibility and by all means succeeds.