Holly Fulton knows she's no minimalist; she allowed as much backstage while dressed in a blouse from her new collection. Its stylized gingko motif fell on the classic end of a print spectrum that combined craftsmanship with machines.
This mechano-Deco idea functioned as a visual metaphor to express the way Fulton works—drawing her graphics by hand, cutting the fabric by machine, and then doing appliqués on the pieces by hand to close the production loop. It all sounds rather esoteric (likewise, the reference to Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera) when, in fact, the collection was all sorts of fun. Hand patterns were a trend at the Paris men's shows last month, and they were a triple entendre in Fulton terms (she once dreamed of being a hand model, and her love of accessories design played out as dimensional chain bracelets adorning an oversize, manicured-hand appliqué on several skirts). In one version, the hand was clutching an old-school cell phone. But that notion is not nearly as throwback as the nuts, cogs, lightning bolts, and exclamation points that conjured up Fritz Lang's Metropolis via Lurex intarsia sweaters.
Fulton's bonded pattern play was so magnetic that her construction—tailored topcoats, forgiving drop-waist dresses, pleated kilts—became the secondary story line, even if it was the solid foundation on which the horn and crystal surface details sat. It might be too much to ask Fulton to dial back the ornamentation; doing less can be daunting.