"People are terribly nervous of getting something wrong and wanting to look cool and therefore they end up thinking that grey and beige are safe colours and they won't get it wrong, and that's a pity...I think that beige does nothing for most girl's complexions, for example, yet so many girls wear beige scarves," Kaffe Fassett told us in 2014 during an interview, while we talked about his passion for colour.
The renowned American textile artist and self-confessed colourist, well-known for his handcrafts, needlework and patchwork pieces, was among the main inspirations for Stuart Vevers' Coach A/W 19 collection, showcased during New York Fashion Week.
Kaffe was born in San Francisco in 1937 and raised in Big Sur, California, and Vevers took a road trip up California's scenic Route 1 that also included a stop at Nepenthe, the famous restaurant opened in 1949 by Bill and Madelaine "Lolly" Fassett, Kaffe's parents. The story of the restaurant introduced Vevers to Kaffe's works and to his floral patterns, geometrical motifs and colourful abstractions.
The opening faux fur jackets (Coach opted to go fur-free since last October) came in a psychedelic '60s print on a dark beige background that may have had Fassett sitting in the front row shivering.
Then gradually floral motifs and patterns started appearing: they were mainly printed on fabrics and overimposed on a black background that added a (Fassett approved?) punk twist to the collection.
Flowers bloomed on shirts, blouses, ruffled dresses, patchwork jackets and bags, even though the best effects were created when Vevers tried to replicate Fassett's techniques: a see-through organza dress with needlepoint roses and a huge flower blooming on a pink Lurex sweater seemed to directly point at Fassett's tapestries and looked a much better option than the frilly dresses on the runway.
There was indeed an excessive saccharine dose in these light chiffon dresses, but Vevers tried to rebalance it matching them with tough bomber jackets, parkas, oversized shearlings lined with colourful fur (that bore echoes of Bonnie Cashin's legacy in the turn-lock hardware fastenings) and plaid, lace or leather surfer shorts.
The offering for men included blazers and grungy plaids, and seemed to revolve around three (trite) themes - Americana, retro styles and casual modernity.
If you knew Fassett's work you couldn't avoid being disappointed: his bold and bright multi-coloured pompoms and decorations, his fuchsias and vivid greens, deep blues and buttercup-yellows, were indeed missing, while Vevers mainly limited himself at experimenting with knitwear (mind you Vevers used Lurex rather than Fassett's silk and alpaca) and needlepoint, leaving behind Fassett's beading, quilting and tapestry.
Fassett's ouvre also includes coats inspired by the Scottish landscape or by personal experiences such as seeing Rudolf Nureyev dancing in "Romeo and Juliet" and these pieces may have been reinvented in a more modern key to provide more variation to the collection. It seemed instead that Vevers' Gothic and gloomy soul and chromophobia swallowed Fassett's optmism and exuberance.
After moving to the UK in the '60s, Fassett started working for Scottish fashion designer Bill Gibb. One of Gibb's ensembles incorporating a hand-knitted waistcoat by Fassett was chosen by Beatrix Miller of Vogue as the 1970 Dress of the Year and eventually relaunched traditional knitwear techniques into fashion.
You seriously doubt that any of the designs seen on Coach's runway will be "dress of the year" once they will become available in the shops, but, hopefully, the collection will prompt a younger generation of fashion students to check Fassett's work and study his use of colours and passion for different techniques.
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