Fashion Week 2009: Narciso Rodriguez

The first thought that came to my mind upon viewing Narciso Rodriguez’s Fall 2009 collection was “meh.” He recently lost his financial backing from Liz Claiborne, which is surely enough to shake any designer’s vision, and that seems to be at least part of the problem with Rodriguez’s most recent offerings. He’s known for his sleek, modernistic clothing with little adornment and painstaking attention to fitting a woman’s body. Tailoring is paramount, and that’s certainly not where this collection falls flat. To find out where it falters and see for yourself, make the jump.

The problem I have is that the collection doesn’t seem particularly cohesive. There were some of the slickly tailored suits and dresses that Rodriguez is known for, but then things got a little weird. There was a black-and-neon patchwork coat could best be described as sack-shaped, and things got more muddled from there. A few of the models were wearing black-and-white camo, and several more wore hats shaped like helmets with slits for the models’ eyes. The message of these pieces seemed more than a little heavy-handed; yes, Narciso, we all realize that life is war for a lot of people these days, with this economic climate, and we also have an actual war going on. There is no need to make the models wear weird hat-helmets to illustrate it. And also, please don’t encourage people to wear camo. I’d appreciate that, Narciso, as a personal favor. There are also some dresses in the collection that are more reminiscent of the Herve Leger bandage dress than anything, and Rodriguez doesn’t put enough of his personal spin on those pieces to make me think of anything else. The collection wasn’t all bad by any means, but I was underwhelmed. Take a look below, maybe you’ll disagree.