Simplicity, Austerity at Calvin Klein

The Calvin Klein Spring ’08 collection by Francisco Costa, shown on September 11, was at once sterile and earthy with clothes that were unadorned, unembellished, solid and smooth...

As antiseptic as a medical lab and utilizing a color palette that had the austerity of Death Valley, it consisted of a combination of emotionless and stark white separates, pale grey dresses with printed with faint pencil-thin lines, filmy trousers, long, flowing sheaths that rippled as they moved and silk bias cut halter gowns that were held up by the thinnest of cords.

If this sounds like a severe collection, it actually wasn’t, due in large part to Costa’s selection of fabrics – primarily stretch viscose/cotton and silk, which lent the clothes lightness and fluidity even though there was such precision in the lines.

Costa is a designer’s designer, with issues of construction, materials and function always the primary focus of a collection. Costa said post-show that this season, fabrics had played a huge role in the making of the collection.

“I wanted it to be about the simplicity of the forms,” he said.

He opened with a stretch cotton and viscose jacket whose construction gave it the appearance of soft foam, while white pants in the same fabric looked molded to the body.

Aside from those pants, though, things were body-conscious, in the sense that lines fell close to the body, but nothing was ever body hugging. Instead, the clothes merely skimmed the surface, held in place by a simple cord or softly cinched at the waist.

Costa In short, these were clothes that felt very much like the kinds of things you’d feel drawn to wearing on the muggiest day of the year, when you can’t be bothered with anything fussy and yet still want to remain chic.