New York designers are rethinking Fashion Week in large and small ways this season. On the macro level are the brands that have switched to an in-season selling model. In comparison, Jason Wu made more of a micro change. He cut his guest list to just 250 people and swapped the sweeping views of his former shows for a more intimate salon-style presentation in Spring Place, Spring Studios’s private club, which was lined with mid-century furniture and dramatic flower vitrines by Putnam & Putnam. The new venue befit the shift in tone. In recent seasons, Wu has favored a subdued palette and a restrained sophistication, insisting he’s grown up alongside his clients. This appealing collection was downright exuberant in comparison—awash in neon colors, high shine, foil-like materials, and many, many flowers, which the audience took in at close range.
Wu said the work of Ugo Rondinone was his starting point for Spring. Rondinone is the artist behind Seven Magic Mountains, a large-scale installation of seven 30-foot-tall stacks of brightly painted boulders in the desert outside Las Vegas that reads as a comment on humans’ impact on nature. He’s also the guy who installed an enthusiastic, rainbow-striped Hell, Yes sculpture on the façade of the New Museum when it opened on the Bowery back in 2007. The sunny optimism of both of those works played out in the collection’s best pieces: tulle dresses with three-dimensional embroideries of fluorescent flowers, which will be a kick to wear. Mood elevating seemed to be Wu’s intention here, whether we’re talking about a wispy, sleeveless lace dress in highlighter yellow, or athletic, compact knit dresses that flashed hints of midriff and wide-expanses of shoulder.
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