There is no physical resemblance between Sharon Wauchob and Tinkerbell, but the designer’s hands seem to have the power of pixie dust, which allows anything they touch to fly. There’s no better way to describe Wauchob’s chiffons than that they look like shadows. Their almost unbelievable lightness is down to the quality of the French chiffons used and the designer’s experience working with them and with lingerie.
Never have her chiffons been more romantic than they were for spring. The voluptuous and voluminous opening look was made of yards and yards of floaty fabric; other designs featured bias-cut ruffles that unfurled like fern fronds. A polka-dot printed number boasted heat-set Fortuny pleats. What allowed such decadent indulgence with chiffon, explained the designer on a call, was that the relative weightiness of this material, which works with gravity, provides a contrast to the flyaway quality of the chiffon. She used this material for the asymmetrical draped Grecian column (Look 5), which was constructed with just one seam. (This editor couldn’t help but think there is some sort of spiritual link between Coco Chanel’s elevation of jersey and Wauchob’s.)
Few garments are more redolent of ease than pajamas, and the designer returned to these for spring; also making a repeat appearance were the sleeve accessories (in sheer and solid options) that customers have so taken to over the past few seasons. They were paired with a camisole and what Wauchob referred to as her ’80s pants (pleated and wider) in Look 4; their addition gave a bubble silhouette to a polka-dot lace cami and tap pants set.
In her collection notes, Wauchob said she’s been drawn to the pivot “between the opulent ’80s and the raw grit of the ’90s,” and open to embracing “contradictory moods, as we find ourselves again at the edge of change.” And yet there was no feeling of “dancing on the lip of the volcano” (a famous New York magazine title for a story about Christian Lacroix and the market crash) in Wauchob’s collection because her focus was on the in-between. The broad shoulders of the draped top (Look 7) were supported not by padding but by twisting the fabric, a bit in the manner of a Mobius strip.
Newest this season was the focus on outerwear; Wauchob said she “wanted to show another note to the song” and set herself the challenge of bringing lightness to this more structured category. Through technical prowess, she managed to create a trench-kimono hybrid. The sleeves on the coat were slit, and you could fold the flaps in different ways or put your arms through them so that it looks almost like the coat is sitting on top of your body. A hooded cape created the shoulder span usually made with an inverted triangle cut, but the waist was actually curved in. This is not a time, Wauchob opined, for flatness and flat patterns, but for the movement and fluidity that three-dimensional draping allows. We must push forward, even if it is at a one-step-at-a-time cadence.
