"I wanted to convey a feeling of uncertainty," Allude designer Andrea Karg said after the show of her haute cashmere line in Paris. "But also give women a sense of comfort." And indeed there was something inherently easy about the silhouettes that she proposed for the coming spring. It is clear that the German fashion entrepreneur has an ongoing love affair with her material of predilection, transcribed as lush rolls of wool around the neck, or woven into raised geometric patterns.
But as lovely as they were, the sweltering heat of Paris' Indian summer made it perhaps a little difficult to envisage wearing these thicker weights. The palette was subtle in monochromatic tones, and an occasional shimmer broke the lineup. Patterns of houndstooth and Prince-of-Wales made for an on-trend play at the retro flavor the past month has taken. There are many directions in which Karg can go with her expertise in the cashmere field. But this iteration moved perhaps in too many directions at once. Reprising the textural experimentations of past seasons, but at the same time pushing forward on the elegant simplicity of shift dresses in intarsia, these many options spoke of an imbalance, but perhaps not the one intended.