Haute Couture

The challenge facing Sarah Burton each menswear season is considerable, yet can be concisely summarized: How to work within the McQueen confines of tailoring, without winding up on the stuffy side of the fence?

As he perused an Agnes Martin exhibition recently, Massimo Nicosia was struck by a quote describing her work as, “a repetitive use of a repetitive medium.” The man at the helm of Pringle of Scotland.

Richard James has a mean copywriter. Read this abridged opening stanza from his Fall presentation notes: “The collection sounds its horn hard, hoists the red ensign, and puts its exotic cargo under a silver gray sky at London’s docks in 1935.”

Margaret Howell has 98 stores in Japan. The fact staggered this American journalist, being from a place where Howell is stocked only in select boutiques, Barneys New York being the highest profile. While her designs lack the leanness and sportiness of U.S. stylistic proclivities (hence the small representation domestically), they are worth a scan for their considered blend of London boyishness and Tokyo eccentricity.

“Comfort and Horror” was Christopher Shannon’s theme for Fall. Pretty weighty words.

By Sibling’s unique standards, though, tonight’s show began gingerly, almost meekly, with black-backed blue or red jacquard blow-ups of a Sid Bryan doodle inspired by Basquiat and Grace Jones covers, on cardigans and blankets that were wrapped around the models like sarongs.