The Park Avenue Armory is built for large-scale installations, and Catherine Holstein and her husband, Griffin Frazen, orchestrated one last night. A 60-foot-tall and many-foot-wide LED display featuring letters, numbers, symbols, and the occasional full word, it conveyed the seriousness of brand Khaite’s intent and the scale of its success to New York Fashion Week’s most glamorous crowd. Next in line: Not just post Malone, but the season so far, A love storyof Sarah Pidgeon, a very Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in a little black dress and pumps.
Just as Bessette Kennedy became an avatar for the late 1990s, so the Haitian woman is one for the mid-2020s, her Arizona ankle boots and East-West Kye bag flashing a savvy status and affordability to all who can read the signs. Denim and knitwear are the other engines of the Khaite brand. On the runway, however, Holstein prefers to focus on tailoring, mostly in black and often leather, and dresses, which lend a soft, ethereal foil to her jackets and pants. She loves a cloud of organza or tulle, barely-there colors and delicate straps.
The collection, he said backstage, was inspired by a recent sighting. F for Fakea 1973 docudrama written, directed and starring the mad talent that was Orson Welles. It’s a film that was required viewing for a certain generation of art school kids, a film that’s so densely constructed and yet unremarkable that it’s almost unwatchable with our TikTok attention spans today. Holstein was inspired by Wells’ ideas—”how we value art, how we value authenticity, the arbiters of taste”—and by the dress code of the day.
He took them as a cue for officer’s jackets with ornate tops, lace blouses for colorful flowers swung across the chest and a croc-tail coat with other pieces, for skirts with Milton Avery paintings, and even for the models’ talon-like faux prints. “It leads to the provocative nature of risk-taking,” she said, “and I’m also pushing my limits.”
In terms of silhouette, she had a fluid midi skirt that has become one of the defining looks of the week. She also sported a lace slip dress that seemed to float several inches off the body. But her most provocative idea might be her shoes. This season’s pointed pumps and shoes were designed not to have the traditional snug, smooth fit, but to be wrinkled, almost magically oversized. If Holstein can build on these trends, it’s going to be really kind of crazy.
