Sunday February 10, 2013 – Park Avenue Armory
In the world of fashion, few can claim to reinvent a style category that they themselves helped create. You can add Tommy Hilfiger to that short list with his latest collection, where he broadened the idea of ‘prep’ to mean Savile Row tailoring and bold patterns. For womenswear, TH took masculine attires and softened them into flirty, youthfully feminine silhouettes that gave nods to academia and Allie McGraw.
Oversized and miniature Prince of Wales patterns are beautifully incorporated into outerwear, either as a standout pattern on dress coats, trenches, blazers and perfectos, as part of a lining to beige tone and red trimmed parkas and trenches, or as a soft backdrop to a midnight blue cardigan. Several white numbers incorporated checkers and stripes into argyle patterns, sleeve cuffs, and pocket trims giving shirt dresses, peacoats, and button down blouses depth and dimension.
Deep navy blue argyle-perforated leather skirts, red pin stripe blazers and shorts, and cuddly white Steiff lining on coats and parkas delivered a powerful undercurrent of Americana. Knee-high leather derby boots were a ‘slight of the eye’ fetish interpretation of the school girl’s knee socks. The show’s climax came near the end when a series of black matte leather cable-knit sweater-dresses floated down the runway only to be bookend by a breathtaking black woven-leather argyle mini-dress.
With brilliant collections such as this one, it’s no wonder Tommy chose a library setting for his show; he’s clearly rewriting the American fashion lexicon.
