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Altuzarra: Vampire Weekenders

For Joseph Altuzarra’s third outing at New York fashion week, the designer proposed tough dominatrix looks for latter day Elviras for his Fall 2010 collection, which he showed Saturday evening, Feb. 13, at Milk Studios, the downtown fashion week outpost.

Though in the earliest stages of his solo career (previously, he was a design assistant to Ricardo Tisci at Givenchy, and before that, interned at Marc Jacobs), Altuzurra, who divides his time between New York and Paris, is already the subject of much critical acclaim.

Last February, he won the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation grant for emerging designers, and just a few weeks ago nabbed Fashion Group International’s Rising Star award for women’s wear.

In the collection he showed Saturday, Altuzarra didn’t shy away from designs that would show off his strong skills as a tailor, using elements of bondage in particular as the basis of this collection.

Altuzarra sent out scores of models wearing tough, sharply cut coats with high, Vampira-like collars, other coats with shiny black goat fur, second skin leather pants and dresses, and covered everything with buckles and straps. Corset belts and lace-up knee high stilettos completed the S&M look.

Altuzurra also stitched panels of leather or velvet together with spindly laces, resembling the sutures of a stitched wound. Some panels were left open, revealing skin criss-crossed by the threads, while others were closed shut, a la Frankenstein or Edward Scissorhands.

Just when it seemed as though Altuzarra would be sticking to a uniform palette of black, highlighting his accomplished tailoring, out came a short, and rather unfortunate, series of blood red velvet suits and evening gowns with red Swarovski crystal collars appropriate for an Olympic figure skater channeling a “Medieval Times” wench. Russian model Natasha Poly closed the show wearing a red velvet crystal embellished cape that would be a great look for a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” theme party.

Altuzarra pal Alexander Wang, fresh from his own show that was held just hours earlier, sat front row. Wang, another one of New York’s “it” boys, was also feeling Goth club girls for fall, so it looks like the ‘90s are officially back.

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