Zac Posen – Pre Spring Summer 2016 Ready To Wear

Here’s a little summary of everything Zac Posen has going on at the moment: a new deal to design Delta Airlines uniforms for 60,000 employees; a gig as Brooks Brothers creative director of womenswear (his first collection will make its debut in September); a long-standing role on Project Runway; and not one, but three collections bearing his name—Zac Posen, a lower-priced ZAC Zac Posen line, and Truly Zac Posen, a bridal offering. He also played chaperone to Maya Thurman-Hawke, eldest child of Uma and Ethan, at the CFDA Awards on Monday night. How he found the time to design the Resort collection he presented today is anybody’s guess, especially considering that Posen keeps pushing into new territory.

There was a time we all remember when Posen was Mr. Drama; every gown seemed to come with horsehair crinolines and every suit with a boned corset. Somewhere along the way, though, he softened up. More often than not, the clothes he showed this afternoon were cut away from the body. Posen mentioned a photograph of his great-aunt dating to the early part of the 20th century: “She was in men’s clothes,” he said. The old picture gave him the zoot suit proportions of his suits. If his dresses did hug curves, they did so a little less insistently than usual. Nearly every look—day, night, short, knee-length, and long—was accessorized with flats. It didn’t necessarily work in the case of a too-long wrap skirt, but the impulse—to emphasize ease—was appreciated. As for high-drama evening gowns, in the end there were the two. The first was strapless and column-thin in a floral brocade, and the second, grand in midnight blue silk. Both of them looked terrific.