NAOMI CAMPBELL brought the curtain down on Fashion Week last night with a giddy gallop down the catwalk accompanied by friends like Kelly Osbourne, Nicole Richie and surprise strutter Beyoncé.
Campbell, who organized the show, “Fashion For Relief,” to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina, got a standing ovation from the 1,000-strong audience made up of people who paid $100-a-head to attend.
The charity show featured an oddball collection of clothes from designers, including Gwen Stefani for L.A.M.B. – a collection that made its Fashion Week debut (and possible finale) an hour earlier.
Proving that a $1 million budget and a bold-faced name isn’t enough to launch a fashion career, Stefani’s highly anticipated show turned out to be the stinker of Fashion Week.
Her rasta-ghetto clothing – including a series of tank dresses, funky track suits, ghetto jumpsuits and snakeskin blazers – looked as if it had been inspired by hip-hop heads after a bad trip in Bob Marley’s backyard.
A selection of frou-frou wisteria-print blouses, ruffle chiffon tops and a slinky black dress with tacky white feathers screamed K-Mart.
Interestingly, none of the 63 designs Stefani presented last night included any of the glamorous dresses she wears on the red carpet – like the skintight leopard that won her best dressed at the recent Video Music Awards – and claims come from her L.A.M.B. line.
Earlier in the day, Donna Karan staged her strongest collection in years.
Going back to her roots and creating clothes that women will love wearing, Karan showed a slew of dresses – belted in the front, loose and flowing at the back – that will flatter every imaginable body type.
The dresses, and a selection of high-waisted tulip skirts, were constructed in light fabrics – like crepe, linen, gauze, silk and even suede – that floated, barely grazing the models’ bodies.
Karan pumped up the volume further with details including oversized sashes that wrapped the midsection and jacket sleeves that blossomed into full leg o’ muttons.
Karan’s palette made the stark white used by so many other designers look wimpy.
Teak brown, inky blue, indigo, golden yellow and red livened up a base of black, as did graffiti and abstract graphic prints.
Ralph Lauren, who also previewed his new collection yesterday, failed to generate the same level of excitement.
We thought the collection Lauren described as being “inspired by cool, bohemian glamour and rustic joie de vivre ” looked anything but.
Prairie skirts, gold-embroidered military tailcoats and blue and white broadcloth stripe dresses looked old.
And worse, deadly boring.
But the collection previewed by Texan designer Lela Rose oozed the kind of breezy, understated glamour we used to associate with Lauren.
Rose, who earned international name recognition when she dressed the Bush twins for their father’s first inauguration, has consistently become more sophisticated with each collection she unveils.
Yesterday, using quirky fabric combinations – like burlap-wrapped gobstopper-sized pearls that coated a bolero jacket and bleached lace that was jet printed onto the hem or neckline of linen dresses – she managed to straddle that very fine line between clothes that are both fun and feminine.
Additional reporting by Lisa Marsh and Farrah Weinstein.