Celebrity stylists can start placing their awards season orders now, starting with Zac Posen.
Posen, who has gone back and forth from big, splashy shows to bare-bones stages, from his hometown here to Paris and back again, seems to have found his footing.
He had the right sort of clothes, attitude and venue to best highlight his dressmaking skills with a restrained, respectful runway show Sunday night al fresco on the balcony of Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.
It was a parade of old Hollywood-style gowns. No loud music, swarms of paparazzi or jostling for seats. He let the dresses own all the drama.
Coco Rocha wore the first and last looks: a snug ivory silk-faille, double-lapel daytime dress with a trumpet hem, and a molded gown made of lustrous, gray duchesse satin with a huge mermaid hemline. She, like many of the models, struggled to get down the long catwalk because the many dresses were indeed cut like second skins with narrow pencil skirts — even underneath those huge flares of fabric at the bottom.
But anyone wearing the gowns, in particular, probably doesn't have to do much but stand there and look good. They're show stoppers for actresses at the Oscars or a socialite on opening night of the opera. Surely these aren't women chasing down a taxi or descending subway steps.
Posen also played with laser-cut pieces of tulle, standing them away from the dress instead of laying them flat against the body, which created the appearance that the garments were animated as they moved. That reminded the audience why Posen was considered such a wunderkind just a few years ago.
Not sure how you'd sit down in those, but, again, that probably doesn't matter.