Esteban Cortazar: Spring Ready-to-Wear

This time last year, Esteban Cortazar presented a collection that he’d already sold to retailers during the Resort season – orders were placed even before the press weighed in. While rethinking the industry cycle might not be half as sexy as Roos Abels’s abs – she being the very young model who opened the show – it does help explain how Cortazar seems to have settled into the fashion firmament so fast.

And now that his brand is viable, he can start having fun, which meant channeling an “otherworldly creature” as his latest muse. Hence the python bra top, asymmetric metallic leather gilet, and platform sandals encrusted with Swarovski crystals. Compared with Cortazar’s past two go-rounds, this collection felt less mannered, more “spontaneous,” as he put it. He credited the ideas to night-long parties in Ibiza this summer, and how the clubbing impulse dates back more than half his life, to when he was a precocious teen in Miami.

Beyond flaunting youthful vibes, the pieces boasted savoir faire. Laser-cut skins were backed in metallic jersey; Lurex knit was developed to resemble a surface of jewels and then lined in cashmere so that it would feel soft, not scratchy; and metal rings were affixed onto coats like contraband watches, creating a clanging chorus with each step. “It was about not being afraid to just play,” said Cortazar. “The past two seasons I was building her universe; this season I just wanted her to be brave.”

A clingy jersey dress slashed with shimmer has already proven a retail favorite, as has an oversize shirt that billows from behind. Tellingly, they represent two of Cortazar’s easier looks; yet they’re sure to get heads turning from dusk to dawn.