“Every time we talk about our woman, it’s very stealth, fast, strong, confident and with this one, we went in a darker direction,” Khaite’s Catherine Holstein said during a preview of her pre-fall collection. The creative director’s collections are built upon that New York attitude — with touches of nostalgia fueled by Holstein’s reconnection with forming her aesthetic identity.
Her pre-fall collection offered this balance through a sharp, minimalist ‘90s mindset (including a mostly neutral palette, with soft shots of color) with a bit of ‘80s quirk and plenty of “slightly sadistic,” sexy twists. Case in point: her latest structured black blazer with tight, nipped-in waist (offered in both black leather and melton wool) with sleek, zip-front pencil skirt and S&M meets quirky shearling lace-up sandals with gold chain details — talk about power dressing.
“About 70 percent of our fabrics are rollover, we design into the fabrics that our customer comes back to us for, so it’s about how we’re reinventing and elevating every season,” Holstein said. Her leather (noted to account for about 10 percent of her business, in ready-to-wear alone), suede and structured melton wool tailoring came in sleek new proportions (spanning from menswear-inspired outerwear to bustier minidresses); merino sweaters were paired with pleated skirts and shirt dresses (in both sheer organza or in silk twill with a familiar, cheeky lip print), toughened up with thigh-high, snake stamped leather boots, and the season’s trendy polo came in roomy, elongated proportions to be worn as a minidress or atop her sweet but sensual godet slipdresses.
Having been named Womenswear Designer of the Year at November’s CFDA Fashion Awards and with retail openings on the horizon, Holstein is coming into the new year maintaining her self-proclaimed “insatiable appetite” for design.
“We’re very ambitious, sometimes I don’t feel we stop enough to smell the roses, if you will. I think there’s high expectations of the brand from both an investor and internal point of view, so considering how ambitious we are, I don’t think anything could have taken that and elevated it. But it’s definitely an absolute honor; I did not expect to win,” she said of her CFDA award.
Source: WWD