Today, at Protagonist's fashion week debut, a cadre of some of the runways' coolest new faces—Magdalena Jasek, Kristina Petrosiute, Hedvig Palm—sulked through a spare, modernist set looking lovely and utterly unaffected.
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Today, at Protagonist's fashion week debut, a cadre of some of the runways' coolest new faces—Magdalena Jasek, Kristina Petrosiute, Hedvig Palm—sulked through a spare, modernist set looking lovely and utterly unaffected.
Today, at Protagonist's fashion week debut, a cadre of some of the runways' coolest new faces—Magdalena Jasek, Kristina Petrosiute, Hedvig Palm—sulked through a spare, modernist set looking lovely and utterly unaffected. Since launching in 2013 as an exclusive to e-commerce site The Line (the brainchild of designer Kate Wendelborn's sister, Morgan, and Vanessa Traina Snow, the stylist of today's show), Protagonist has earned a devoted following of editors and chic girls-about-town, and has been picked up by Barneys and a choice selection of indie stockists. It's little wonder why: Wendelborn has a knack for creating worthy investment pieces, impeccable basics that are anything but.
Fall found the designer marrying the rough-hewn sensibilities of the Italian Arte Povera ("poor art") school with her line's sumptuous fabrications and now-signature, faintly Margiela-esque deconstruction. A crisp, open-backed white shirtdress played on the half-linings found in coats, to titillating effect. Elsewhere there were simple, serged hemlines and long bias straps that went untrimmed, nodding to the way a dressmaker would adjust the length of a gown; big, open cable-knit sweaters exposed glossy silk bias slips underneath. A sweeping checkered jacquard coat, notable as a rare foray into pattern for the brand, was so beautiful as to leave one hungry for more. Equally promising? The deconstructed, vintage-y denim trousers, new this season.
But beyond all that rawness, Fall saw some ladylike developments for a label that first crystallized with riffs on menswear-inspired shirting. There was a hint of femme fatale around the edges of a wine-colored midi pencil skirt—and more than a hint to supple leather opera gloves, worn scrunched to perfection; ditto the nipped waists of suit jackets. Those looks were coolly, covetably demure, and just a couple of the many big wins Wendelborn had on her hands here.