A white cube at the top of the runway set the glacial tone at Lacoste's New York Fashion Week Show. From the first ice-white look, it was clear that designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista had snow on the mind.
'My starting point was an imaginary polar expedition,' he said backstage after the show. He expressed that in glacier prints and a pure, icy palette with flashes of rescue orange.
Curve-tracing sweatshirt dresses were pieced together like vintage ski jumpers. All that sportiness felt feminine, thanks to corset seaming and body-con cuts.
Lacoste's heritage is as a sportswear company, and performance overtones were there from the beginning. The classic polo shirt's piqué finish appeared in almost every look. Bonded with technical fabrics, it took on more conceptual, ergonomic shapes, as in a curved-sleeved neoprene sweatshirt. 'We wanted to see, how many languages can we give to pique?' Baptista said.
Near the end of the show, tiny silver zippers ran all over leather dresses like ski tracks across fresh powder. It was crisp, clean and appealing. As for the current crisp, clean, unappealing weather blanketing New York, Baptista said, 'At least it gives a nice frame to the collection.'
See the Lacoste A/W 2013 collection.
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