After last season’s wearable lineup, it was back to business for Kevin Germanier — show business, that is.
Set in a former car dealership’s parking garage, his spring show felt like the dress rehearsal for a rave in space. If aliens do land on our planet anytime soon, they could do worse than pick up some looks from his spring collection for the welcome party.
The Swiss designer’s muses of the spring were nudibranchs — soft-bodied marine gastropods that come an array of neon colors. “It’s considered dirty but it’s beautiful. Why would these be considered scary, ugly, as trash,” he said backstage.
This iteration, said trash was feathers rejected from marabout production, acres of tulle and endless knick-knacks like Hello Kitty sequins sourced by the team working with Brazilian artist Gustavo Silvestre.
Each season seems like a tightrope exercise balancing the more-is-more aesthetic that put Germanier on the map with his knack for giving a glow-up to denim separates, knits and dresses to great effect on the other.
Here, the former won out. There was a wheel of giant feathers; a knitted metallic outfit that looked half Rio Carnival float and half Predator armor; frothy orbs of fabric hanging from shoulders and legs, and elements that looked like they could be feather-tipped cat toys — or catnip for performers.
But the latter direction offered standout additions that included pencil skirts in printed sequins; shorts zhuzhed up with beaded embroideries, and minidresses made of a flurry of brightly colored knit. They deserved to have a greater share of the limelight.
