More of the 2017 Resort collections are coming through, offering windows into the range of choices we have come to expect in fashion collections. Within these, individual creative efforts also begin to convey the shared vocabulary that defines this season.
To be sure, there is variety regarding the choice of simplicity versus complexity. Many collections so far lean towards the print embrace that disrupted the cleaner controlled executions of past seasons, owing in part to the well-timed retro revisit by Gucci that found a new audience fascinated by the kind of taste-challenging print overload the 70s jumped on before, albeit not as aggressive, such as what was seen by Etro, Fendi or Louis Vuitton. On the other hand most collections also contained a balance of solids and clean pieces, and some collections were, on the whole, very clean and minimal, such as those by Escada, Jenni Kayne and Jil Sander. What they all shared was the unmistakeable hallmark of our current century: the intricate execution of precision.
As more and more collections are revealed, the exactitude of the cut demonstrates more than our appreciation of technical prowess. It reveals our new minimal expectation that can only come from the standards we consider the new norm. Technology is becoming more integrated into all aspects of our lives to the extent that there are few things that are not touched by our technical hand. If it not in the tools and we use in our daily lives to work and play, it is in the foundations that shape the things that are not already wired and connected. And as we tap into the exponential power these technically enhanced tools provide, we become accustomed to new levels of perfection. Details that would have been the domain of exclusivity are now democratically accessible. And so, the sophistication is amped up.
If there is simplicity, it is deceptively so; the technical aspect may seem absent but it finds its way in the perfection of a print or evolution of a classic textile woven with intricate nuance of technical sophistication a technician would be able to detail with glee.
This is our world now. An expert eye can decode what we now expect as the standard. This precision is as focused as the formats that support our media. In this precision we find the clarity of vision...the specificity of expression...that is our new standard. Spoiled for choice and fortunate in what is democratically accessible, our computer-assisted lives are finding us becoming accustomed to a new norm. And in a world where chaos and uncertainty are weekly news feed fodder, this certainty expressed in the material becomes a desired antidote of balance, our comfort…our destination resort.