Narciso Rodriguez Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2013 New York

Narciso Rodriguez is in the groove. The designer’s collection was a perfect mélange of his brand’s sensual DNA and more experimental embellishments. It was the combination of elements that created a strong new direction for the designer.

There is perhaps nothing harder to do in fashion than make sexy look truly sophisticated. But Rodriguez succeeded with this show. More importantly he did it in a number of different ways but managed to always link the designs together through the dominant use of liquid silks and floaty chiffon.

The first black and white pantsuits had a slightly oversized nonchalance about them. The flyaway coats came paired with tapered pants and an exaggerated v-neck top (we are talking down to the navel) that featured a modest panel of horizontal cloth inserted across the chest. They had a certain tomboy minimalism to them but the style was also suggestive of the extreme.

However the designer quickly moved away from pantsuits and put the focus on dresses this season. He echoed the v-neck look of those first few tops onto brightly colored shift dresses and took the triangle shape of that cut out for a spin. Using its angular form to accentuated the waistline of a dress, as well as finishing off a long vest in exaggerated points at the front, and finally gave a graphic asymmetrical edge to hot pink color blocks on silky slip dresses.

Besides the sharp corner theme running throughout this collection Rodriguez injected a bit of texture onto his flowing designs. This came in the form of laminated wood paillette embroidery that gave a pixelized quality to the flower motifs. And the use of colorful three-dimensional beading to create abstract floral designs on dresses made fingers itch to stroke the fabric.

This was a stellar show from start to finish. It proved that sexy isn’t limited to only one kind of silhouette.

- Jessica Michault