Zac Posen is back in Paris for the second season, but he’s changed things up since September, restructuring his company and stripping his clothes of a lot of the feathers and furbelows that threatened to smother them the last time around. He took a similar approach to the diffusion collection he showed in New York a few weeks ago to positive effect. There, he said, “we’re moving into a more streamlined identity of my original language.” The question here is, if you lose the drama, what’s left of the Posen DNA?
For one, his signature nipped and tucked waist. When you shed all the extras, silhouette is what remains, and you can clock one of Posen’s hourglass dresses from across the room. He showed them in long sleeves and strapless, the raciest with a black crocodile bustier. And he can still cut an evening dress to drive celebs wild; the gray and navy ombré mermaid numbers will land on one red carpet or another in the not too distant future.
He sniffed out the Fall trend for skinny cropped trousers. As for the rest of his daywear, the cavernous space and the slow pace of the show are probably partly to blame, but it was difficult to rouse much excitement for it.
