In one of her best collections yet, Vera more than exhibited the talent and creativity that earned his this year’s CFDA Award for Women’s Wear Designer of the Year. Needless to say, the show was one of the most highly anticipated of the season, and the venue at the Tents was packed to full capacity.

Inspired by the “charm, optimism, and sophisticated primitivism of Henri Matisse mixed with the strict, sometimes fanciful definitions of femininity in America's Wild West”, (she even used the names “prairie” and “farmer’s” to describe blouses, dresses, and jackets),I couldn’t help but see some touches of Romeo Gigli, and Japanese innovators like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo in the poetic romance of it all. Vera is in love with couture like cut, construction, draping, and is having a love affair with billowy volume, but done in a modern relevant way. And though she concentrated on skirts, dresses, and ballgowns, there was a blurring of the line between day and evening with several new takes on the suit….of course, not a traditional suit, but versions translated in her artistic and romantic fashion. Best of those was the breathtaking skinny lavender silk faille ‘corset’ jacket worn over a white men’s heavy cotton dress shirt with hand crocheted eyelet jabot and paired with a billowy navy floral brocade peasant skirt.

Even though the overall feeling was one of rich, textural, opulence, at the same time, it was made to look slightly worn and lived in, rather than brand new, store bought, and ‘precious’. In fact, Vera was intent on mixing “humble and sophisticated fabrics, elements both tailored and relaxed and the inherent modernity of extreme contrasts” which she achieved by using heavy white cotton shirts or blouses in conjunction with taffeta and duchesse satin, or accessorizing with rugged brown leather or raffia belts.

In a strong season for white shirts and romantic blouses, Vera had several distinctive versions (many of hers also featured cotton tulle jabots), and were layered underneath voluminous jackets or skinny ones, and even though dresses may still be the ‘story’, she was yet another designer to endorse pants this season…cropped full pants and skinny ones (like the pair that opened the show which were shown with a black taffeta eyelet “painter’s” blouse and white cotton tulle jabot underblouse).

Colors were predominantly dark and somber: black, mahogany, oyster, charcoal, mustard, navy, lavender, and khaki and looked better than the brighter shades which somehow seemed out of step with the overall feeling. And the fabrication, which really told the story of rich texture, structure, and volume, included duchesse satin, iridescent taffeta, tulle, brocade, lace, chiffon, silk faille, heavy cotton, silk shantung.

Among the standouts were the black lace “bed jacket” paired with a men’s taupe silk shirt with taffeta tie worn paired with black crepe back satin cropped pants; a charcoal floral brocade “cape jacket” worn with a mahogany satin mousseline blouse and a voluminous midcalf oyster moiré back bustle skirt; a black wool “painter’s” smock with eyelet embroidered pocket over white men’s heavy cotton dress shirt and navy floral brocade dirndl; the black wool linen “prairie” dress with taffeta sleeves; a charcoal and navy striped cotton wrap “prairie” jacket over dusty lavender washed silk taffeta “dance” dress; and the dramatic floor sweeping black silk faille “widow” skirt worn with a silk camisole and a voluminous black silk faille “cape jacket”.

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