ZAC POSEN RESORT 2012

ZAC POSEN RESORT 2012

COCO ROCHA (ELITE)

More, more, more is the usual marching order at Zac Posen. For Fall, he clipped his wings a bit, but you couldn't help feeling that the effort cramped his style. So for Resort, he's back to bigger-is-better exuberance, the poe-faced be damned. Luxury was the word he hammered home. Twists and lattices of taffeta crossed bodices and jacket sleeves but hewed close to the garments—"crushed couture," Posen called it. Not that every piece kept a close circumference. Posen's gowns are more wasp-waisted than ever, but several—including the blood-red showpiece Posen likened to a Charles James—explode at the hems into frothy tiers of cascading cloth.

Loyal fans—like Posen's lookbook model, Coco Rocha, and longtime pal, Josephine de la Baume, whose wedding dress he's designing for her August nuptials to Mark Ronson—will be glad to find their friend restored to his former pomp. For those who appreciate the more streamlined Posen, there are the consolations of silk faille trenches, flaring pencil skirts, and suiting newly developed in Italy, in leather-trimmed tweed.