Cinematic reality and the idea of one woman giving voice to different aspects of her personality. Those parallel thoughts ran through Natacha Ramsay-Levi’s mind as she worked on her second collection for Chloé. During a preview, she referenced French actress Stéphane Audran, whom, she said, often wore Karl Lagerfeld’s Chloé, and, to her second point, Cindy Sherman. Ramsay-Levi said that, unlike last season’s “table of contents of different women,” here, she focused on “going deep into the identity of one woman, the fact that we like to dress up and we like to change and we like to sometimes show one side of our personality and sometimes another side.”
The notion of one woman channeling multiple aspects of her character via clothes didn’t necessarily translate. But no matter; this collection was focused and interesting, if at times overwrought. At least as indicated in her debut, Ramsay-Levi is no fashion romantic. It’s her challenge to lure the Chloé customer with something as compelling as the tony, bohemian chic of the Clare Waight Keller era. Still, she’s not reckless. In don’t-throw-out-baby-with-bath-water mode, here, Ramsay-Levi embraced the brand’s long-running reputation for airy volumes. Instead, she delivered a specific take, unfussy but not at all simple, using the word “sharp” to describe the mood, if not the silhouette. The point was to capture bourgeois allure, with dress after dress in voluminous silk with a lot going on — pleats, slits, lace insets, cutaway panels, studs, and lots of skin, via to-the-waist V-necklines. The point was to layer or not, as one chooses. (In the real world, one would likely choose the former.) Some of the dresses brought a fresh, bold attitude to the notion of flou; others were just too tricked out. Case in point: the cowboy-shirt-into-dress that could give Nudie Cohn palpitations.
But then, Ramsay-Levi is no minimalist. She likes the grand gesture, rendered casually. She thus reissued a (very) Seventies geometric print from the archives, reproducing it verbatim but for one addition — the “Chloé” logo shadowed into the backs of shirts. She gave flourish to blouses and knits with Renaissance leg o’ mutton sleeves and upper-arm bracelets. And she added details aplenty to pants. Some worked (racy black flares with horizontal thigh zippers). Some didn’t (a jodhpur-ish trouser with goat hair running down the sides, like shaggy tuxedo stripes).
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Two seasons in, Ramsay-Levi seems intrepid and a bit overzealous. The confidence is admirable and essential. But in her zeal to distinguish her Chloé, she must be mindful of retaining the look of luxe.