Victor Alfaro Spring 2016 Collection

“However I touch things, they always look very polished. I just can’t help it.” So noted comeback kid Victor Alfaro after his show today, and indeed, the collection he presented proved his point. The greatest part of the appeal of these clothes was their immaculateness, discovered in the perfect body-skimming fit of a bias-cut silk gown or the piping detail on a white cotton jumpsuit or, of course, in any of Alfaro’s signature knits. Of the latter, the most eye-catching pieces were the dressy sweaters embellished with ribbon embroidery or dangling bugle beads, or patchworked together with lace; the items that stuck with you, however, were the ones that summoned a more monumental effect.

Alfaro has a talent for the statuesque, which he deployed here in (seemingly) simple silk gowns with graphic windowpane insets, terrific long-line jumpsuits and likewise lean cashmere gilets, and various voluminous pants. Tee-shaped dresses and quilted cargo pants introduced a sportier tone, but they still had a certain Georgia O’Keeffe-wandering-the-New-Mexico-desert vibe, one that was ramified by garments such as a floor-length knit cape. (Ellsworth Kelly, meanwhile, provided the punch of yellow and orange in the collection’s palette.) The aura of self-possession in Alfaro’s clothes will, alongside his knits, remake his name in time this ’90s wunderkind seems to be taking the long view and making clothes not so much for this, or any particular, moment, but ones built to last.