For his resort debut, Sam Linder presented a fresh, clean — but not too clean — and warped sporty lineup against the elements of a thundery Thursday New York evening. It seemed almost humorously purposeful, Linder’s eclectic play on his almost exclusively white-hued prep collection against the unexpectedly brash backdrop.
Sartorially printed sporty fabrics, specifically spandex, is a string that Linder flawlessly threads through each collection. There were buffalo plains for fall, various tartan prints for spring, and now knife pleats and cable knits for resort. A calf-length, trompe l’oeil, knife-pleated, printed tennis skirt and trompe l’oeil, cable-knit, cardigan, printed, spandex blazer compete with classic striped cuffs made for clever, fashionable takes on prep with the added comfort of stretch.
Other riffs on tennis, the country club life and cricket — “twisted prep,” as Linder called it — came from head to toe. “Green screen green” and white polos were ripped at the side seams and cooly tacked together to expose the hip bones and paired with new, slightly high-waisted sheer technical or solid cotton twill workwear trousers. Athletic short-shorts came in a plasticky blue, strappy tennis dresses had modern, wide-rounded necklines and some tank tops had simply no backs at all. The 20-look collection also included plenty of new ultra suede offerings, “a night queen tennis girl,” Linder remarked of an icy tracksuit and jumpsuit rendition. To round everything out, the designer added elements of lightness through sheer layers. His best mashup in the form of a floor length, waistband-less skirt atop a white bodysuit with printed spandex cable-knit corset.
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When asked the reasoning of expanding into resort Linder simply replied, “To be completely honest, between February and September is too long to be working on just one thing.…I like to cycle though the ideas and also love to do the presentations.” Impressive, especially given the timing of the publicized burnout crisis.