Tory Burch and Meruert Tolegen

Two contrasting moments in New York, from a Tory Burch power show in the city’s greatest library, to a poetic moment by newcomer Meruert Tolegen in a snowstorm in Chinatown.
 

Tory Burch: Disorder in the library

The omens did not feel right from the beginning at Tory Burch. As guests took their seats, a voice from a battery of loudspeakers kept shushing everyone up. Never a good idea to tell a New Yorker to be quiet, especially a New York fashionista – the most chattering of the chattering classes.
 
Finally, after being told to be quiet 50 times, the audience took their seats inside the New York Public Library, a handsome early 19th century building on Fifth Avenue.

Burch could be complimented for breaking new ground in this fall 2024 collection, though unfortunately she did not find fertile ground with many of her ideas.
 
A series of tinselly sequined fringe opening dresses did have a certain pizzazz, as did a sublime putty gray splitable wool coatdress. Tory also picked up on the new Zen for sheer looks, with a rather great burgundy red corset and sheer skirt combo, albeit that this recalled Ludovic de St Sernin.
 
But the collection lost its way in a woeful series of cotton skirts with strange spaghetti ruffles, and some ridiculously heavy broad stripe coats that really didn’t work. Nor did a series of shaggy raffia coats or peculiar smocked nylon taffeta dresses with a shamrock print at the finale.
 
One could not fault the front-row of Uma Thurman, Natasha Lyonne, Barbara Sprouse, Awkwafina and Kathryn Newton. But this collection was on several points Tory Burch’s A Game, on her day a great designer, and the savviest American fashion brand builder of this century.
 
Perhaps, the soundtrack summed it, that classic song by Joy Division – Disorder.
 

 Meruert Tolegen: Kazakhstan to Chinatown

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Meruert Tolegen is a Kazak-born designer and an unexpected  new voice in the New York fashion scene.
 
An art school graduate, Tolegen has found her métier in fashion with a style that could be described as romantic expressionism. Notably in puckered and ruffled black calico grand gowns.
 
She loves floral prints employed in voluminous silk dresses and matelassé coats, that all had a whimsical air. Meruert likes to say part of her inspiration comes from growing up and playing in her grandparents garden, and there was a sense of nostalgia for the old Soviet Union – seen in the Dostoyevsky heroine coats, rural headscarves and oversized hairclips.
 
Staged in a disused shopping arcade in Chinatown in the beginning of a snowstorm it felt like a moment of grace in the madding crowd that is Manhattan.