Ohne Titel Review in Fall 2015 RTW

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There are designers whose perspectives shift with the seasons, and there are those whose collections remain, no matter the mood in fashion, recognizably their own. Ohne Titel falls into the latter category: Flora Gill and Alexa Adams specialize in graphic, body-conscious, somewhat space-age engineered knits, and they do them exceptionally well. For fall, however, the duo couldn’t resist the current of seventies nostalgia that’s been percolating through the collections. Their jumping-off point was artist Tom Wesselmann, whose Pop Art paintings of the era are almost luridly vibrant. “The idea was subversive color,” Adams said backstage before the show. “Off colors that nearly clash, but don’t.”

There was, in turn, a curious harmony to the mostly long and lean layers of cobalt, magenta, tan, and aqua that followed, an assortment Adams called “a total knit lifestyle.” Adams and Gill, more so than most, like to geek out about new knitting techniques; one in particular involved tone-on-tone plaited multidirectional ribbing on turtlenecks, tunics, and ballet-style wrap cardigans, which Adams said “almost reads as geographic, like crops.” Fluffy tuck-stitched cotton tape yarn appeared to float atop color-blocked knit dresses and flared sweater pants, an effect Gill likened to macramé. Lurex-laced sweaters and dresses offered a modern nod to the last days of disco, while hand-knotted suede net-and-fringe belts took the Me Decade theme more literally (though the effect when layered was more graphic than groovy). Woven fabrics also worked their way into the mix; shirtdresses and pleated skirts came in slick polyurethane-coated chiffon, while the quintessential seventies knit pattern—space-dye—also doubled as a digital print.
One subtle standout was a sharp black trench, texture-blocked in suede and glossy leather, paired with what Gill called “eyelash pants” knitted from shiny, shaggy black tinsel. “It’s every different texture imaginable in one black look,” she said. In Ohne Titel’s hands, even the seventies look like the future.