John Patrick provided a gentle wake-up to Fashion Week, showing a cozy collection integrating the elements we’ve come to depend on from his line, Organic. Fresh-faced models wore chiffon gowns, robe-like sweaters, woolen jackets and leather shorts in woodsy shades of chestnut, black, and grey, with occasional accents of mustard yellow and dusty rose.
John Patrick said he was feeling very “upstate and Massachusetts” when he designed this season, and the country American feeling comes through in beaded belts (actually Masai from Africa, compliments of Jack Spade), blue cotton chambray shirts, and exceptional hand-knit sweaters by FIT student Amanda Henderson. Amanda knit the sweaters from local wool, and gave them rich texture by adding bits of roving (essentially un-spun sheep’s fluff) as she knit, and then “needle felting” it, a process she described as “painting with a needle.”
Little bits of lace – a tap pant, the bodice of a slipdress – paired with floral prints in varied scales, thigh-high socks and chunky clog-heeled Hunter boots lent a bit of ‘90s granny-grunge, but outside of Amanda’s sweaters, there was nothing truly unexpected here. Rather, we saw a tight group of John Patrick’s signature pieces: a checkerboard blazer, a ladylike floral, a sexy short.
The designer shrugged happily: “I do what I do, you know?”
