Micheal Bastian

Once, a trawl through a Michael Bastian collection would take an eon -there was so much to consider. His first show provided an interesting opportunity to see the designer's own distillation of those multiple options. Actually, it wasn't really a show, more a tight edit of 25 looks based around Bastian's latest American archetype. He had in mind Sam Elliott and Parker Stevenson from a 1976 movie called "The Lifeguard" (male hotties from the seventies being something of a specialty). That translated to plenty of the sporty shorts (bathing suits, even) you'd associate with guys like that. At the other end of the spectrum, Bastian offered his signature freewheeling take on eveningwear : shawl-collared pink jacket, blue tux shirt, pale gray pinstriped pants. And in between, standouts included a zippered Fair Isle cardigan, a suede safari jacket, and another jacket in a crisp white seersucker paired with pink cutoffs. That's the kind of easy casual/formal combo at which Michael Bastian excels (the kind that may see him filling Ralph Lauren's shoes somewhere down the line). Still, one wondered whether the edit around his elected theme was perhaps a little too tight to fully broadcast his talent to anyone who hasn't yet been converted. But for novices, there were always all those racks of clothes to drift through deliriously.