Yuna Yang’s collection for fall winter was, above all, consistent.

 

The skater shoes, designed in house, felt like an early predictor for what the collection might be like. Maybe rocker girl, maybe a little gothic. Consistency: nearly every model wore the chunk rubber kicks. However, they were worn with extravagant, highly tailored floor length dresses, serious pantsuits, short skirts. In almost every instance, the shoes ruined a perfectly solid look. Something else ruined things too: the plaid print that dominated the first half of the show felt a little too utilitarian, a little too familiar. It looked like a print lifted from an Eddie Bauer camping blanket. The plaid was thrown on everything, and didn’t work with the shoes. The show improved considerably in the second half, indicating the first part was a simply an ambitious fumble, an attempt at creating something truly innovative.

Yuna Yang clearly has Chanel as her muse, as many looks felt reminiscent of past Chanel signatures that have gone the way of the dodo, perhaps needlessly. Leave it to YunaYang to not only bring them back from the dead, but also give them a heady revamp. We see it in a jacquard suit in an acutely 80’s gray microplaid print, but the whole thing color blocked. We see it in cropped jackets in tweed and cotton. Capes in a satin finish (as well as the, well, challenging, plaid). Even the sweatpants paired with an embroidered blouse could be traced back to a Chanel collection, probably from the 90’s. None of this is a bad thing, as Yuna Yang clearly has a knack for mastering complicated hemlines and seams that are common in Chanel pieces. It’s now a matter of taking that talent and making something truly original.