From New York —the sassy suit

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 17

From New York —the sassy suit

SARAH MOWER,.

fashion editor of the “Observer,”

meets an American minimalist designer

New York fashion, is. as they say over there, on a roll. London’s top stores are in hot pursuit of new and established American designers who possess what's known in the trade as New! York sass.

Translated, it’s a term that expresses admiration for the glamour of fasttalking, fast-moving briskness and efficiency. Sassy clothes are sexy clothes, blit they adhere to the strictest code of

discipline; stripped for city action, they are jevoid of all expendable detail but always exude a certain kind of businessclass luxury. Calvin Klein, 1 ' Perry Ellis, Donna Karan, and

Zoran pioneered the look. Their followers are Carmelo Pomodoro and Michael Kors, native New Yorkers whose names are now being bandied about in Knightsbridge. Harrods has taken up

Pomodoro, and recently Michael Kors; flew into promote his range, a Harvey I Nichols exclusive.

The similarities between their [work are; striking. Both favour browns and blacks, both cut the hem dramatically short and both as young men (30 and >2B respectively) speak of the inspiration they derive from being broughtj up in the company of the legendary, go-getting;New York woman. !

To Michael Kors, cleanness and spareness are articles of faith, almost a fetish. [ Signed up at age 19 to design a line for the store Lothar's in New York while he was still a student at tiie Fashion Institute of Technology, he began by “doing everything myself, from seeing things made |to putting them on the mannequins in the windows.”

Six years . ago he launched hisj own-label collection, backed by his family’s money.

“I swore I’d never use a zipper and I everything would be petite or small and everything would be interchangeable.”

He chuckles at the memory — now zips have been allowed' to violate the integrity of his garments and he’s comprom.ised on size, to the point of selling a size 12.

“But the spirit remains. I’ve always j been interested in a woman who is busy, who travels, who is confident I with her image, and 'jvho doesn’t buy extravagent evening-

wear but will ; dressup daywear for night. “Six years ago women were just beginning to live like that, it was a New York situation. Now the myth is becoming fact, internationally, not just in New York City.”

Kors’s mother is a role model who was also once a photographic model, who “loved to shop. She never wore loud prints or crazy colours. “Mother is now [a strong indicator of our customer profile. She travels a lot, has her own business, is one of those women who keeps a spare I pair of shoes in the trunk of her

car to put on, with some extra jewellery, to go to dinner.”

Grandmother Kors wears Kors too. :

“Seventy-year-olds are not as seventy-year-olds were 20 years . ago. Twenty-year-olds [ ■ and grandmothers can wear my clothes equally well.”

Kors’s mission is to “make everything easier for the customer.

“You only need seven pieces in your wardrobe at any one time.'There is the jacket, which is essen-

tial — my customers don’t feel dressed without it. Two skirts, a great pair of trousers, a couple of knit stretch tops for day and a barer one for the night. It works.”

Less, then, is more, in terms of design. It also tends to mean more in price.

Kors justifies: “In fittings the most difficult things to get right are the most simple. Everything is reduced to fit and fabric. You couldn’t do these things in lesser fabrics than the luxurious ones we use.

“These things must be perfect, but they have mileage — they’re the pieces women wear all the time, every day."

Taking his clothes to show in stores, Kors has discovered, to his gratification, that his customers are a pernickety lot.

“They’re very vocal. They want to know, do you tuck it in? What about a belt? And they’ll be

particular about an eighth of an inch on the length of a sleeve. I listen to their needs and respond in the next collection.”

Whether British women will shape up to the demands of New York minimalism remains to be seen, but Kors promises impact in return for outlay. •

“My customers don’t like clothes to wear them. They want other people to say, ‘I don’t know what she did, but she looks great!’ That’s the only way I’ve ever thought a woman looks really good.”

i “I’ve always been interested in

a woman who is

busy, who

travels, who is confident with her image.”