Cynthia Rowley Spring 2013: Modern Old World Decadence

By Bonnie Datt Sep 14, 2012, 3:15pm EDT

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Yesterday evening, Cynthia Rowley capped off Fashion Week with one of the more creative presentations of the week. Held in the stunningly dilapidated multistory atrium at 5 Beekman Street, models posed as slides of them wearing the same designs were artistically projected onto the building's decaying walls behind us.

We viewed the collection while mirrored confetti wafted down upon us from the balconies and great old rock tunes rang out from the loud speakers. Many of the dresses and tops were exaggerated, with hems that bellowed out sort of like modern mini versions of warped hoop skirts. The collection also included metallic bodycon rompers, which balanced the dresses' post-modern elegance with a sporty feel. Our favorite of the designs were made from fabric which resembled brocade with foiling interwoven in it. These managed to match the beautiful decadence of the venue perfectly.

Accessories included giant printed baseball-style caps (which unfortunately created photo-unfriendly shadows on some of the models' faces) and giant glasses with cool, statement-making long gold chains. Each model's hair was purposefully ratted to frizz out in the same manner which we purposefully struggle to keep ours from doing. Somehow it always works better on the models...