New  York Fashion Week Day Seven

Sophisticated, streamlined, sombre – the models who walked down the Calvin Klein runway on thick platform shoes with transparent heels were a far cry from earlier days of the brand’s dynamic sportswear. 

The women who used to take sex and sensuality in a long stride have been replaced with apparently more complex figures, wearing long slim dresses with a second light layer of fabric that took over where the mid-calf hemline stopped.

In inky shades of blue, the effect was artistic and the diametric opposite in spirit to clothes in which to show off.

“It’s all made of knitting,” said the designer Francisco Costa, whose exploration of hyper-modern fabrics has become his trademark.

The problem with this approach is how little of these complex effects show up on the runway.

Normally, I will always go backstage before the show – not to see Sarah Jessica Parker (although she looked splendid in a royal blue coat) – but to have Francisco explain the origins and treatments of the different materials.

All I had for this collection was my eyes, absorbing the silver sheen on a fitted, thigh-length top that went with a translucent light skirt; or a soft leather coat (that even looked knitted) in ketchup red. The long, dark dresses that opened the show and a couple of short, A-line dresses were all solemn. White followed for contrast, but in much the same elongated shapes. Hair was pulled off the face in a scrunch and nothing but the texture of the fabric balanced the severe lines.

Francisco Costa does a good job of refining the Calvin Klein name. But it is increasingly hard to link these grown-up clothes with the spirit of a young Calvin Klein.