Long, lean and minimal has been the brief for several fashion houses of late. Calvin Klein creative director Francisco Costa naturally falls into that purist category, and this season he joined his colleagues in driving down hemlines. Key to the newly lengthened look was a layered effect that the designer achieved either by clamping mid-calf dresses with knee-length coats worn on top or by playing with mid-calf skirts paired with stretched out tunic tops. Costa kept his palette rigorously unfussy and yet decidedly American: there were shades of cream and white, no-nonsense navy blue and a deep cranberry red, all of which were worn tone-on-tone or as colour-blocked geometric shapes. Maxi dresses can sometimes suffer from a matronly effect, but Costa tantalised with his evening numbers: think T-shirt dresses with a sheer metallic embroidered mesh that coyly revealed the models' legs.
Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans
