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story by Seth Friedermann
photos by Adrianna Favero
web editor Rachel Reneé
Behnaz Sarafpour made a much welcome return to the New York Fashion Week lineup with her Fall 2012 collection. Her trademark easy-to-wear designs were still very much in evidence (she lets the models wear flats!!), but the clothes were executed with a subtlety and a level of imagination previously unseen in her twelve year career. Her Resort collection of a few weeks back gave some hints as to this new elevated level of design, but this 20-piece Fall collection far surpasses any of her previous work.
The clothes were spun from magically delicate and luxurious fabrics and fashioned in cuts that ensured their easy fit into a modern women’s’ wardrobes. Most impressive of all was the harmonious nature of each of the garments. Every piece was full of subtle details that individually were nice but unremarkable, however when combined by the trained hands of Mrs. Sarafpour they created a cumulative effect that was utterly bewitching.
Behnaz Sarfpour’s fabric selections were another huge part of what made the collection one for the ages. Her choices ranged from marvelous work with an older fabric such as guipure lace, a heavy lace that is unanchored to any netting, up to sleek dress made of a hyper-modern choice such as lurex. The creativity in fabric selection was matched stride for stride with Mrs. Sarafpour’s choices in fabric treatments. From a traditional vertical accordion pleating technique on skirts and dresses that was sprinkled throughout the collection, to a triple keyhole front on a camel cashmere turtlenecked sweater that was the very essence of experimentation and what’s next thinking.
It was this dynamic approach to mixing design choices, fabrics, and treatments with balanced precision that pushed the collection into rarefied air. Mrs. Sarafpour seems to have arrived at a very new and exciting place in her career. The garments were full of life and had that weightlessness that is the hallmark of superior design and craftsmanship. Behnaz Sarafpour’s comeback tour is off to a spectacular start and I believe that her ascendancy up the ladder of New York fashion has only just begun.
