SS22: Puppets and Puppets.
Who isn’t ready to shed pandemic isolation? “We’re all craving socialization, so I wanted the collection to feel like a haunted party,” Carly Mark of Puppets & Puppets said after her show on Sunday. “People are getting out of the house, but we’ve still got something funky going on.”
Funky and plenty charming. Mark is an artist and naturally brings that perspective to her fashion, but without high-minded pedantry. These are clothes to enjoy rather than ponder. And to wear. After launching for Fall 2019, Mark quickly shed the one-off art-piece concept in favor of fare more suited to building a viable business. The collection currently sells at Ssence, and Mark hopes that this effort will attract more retailers. Backstage, she boasted that every piece is “production ready.”
To that end, most of the wackiness coming in add-ons: cheesy headgear (Swiss wedge and Parmesan wheel bonnets); “breast plates” (a pair of saucers) attached to a toile du jouy corset look. The clothes are deceptively accessible, while distinctive and eccentric in their range, from the first look out, an oversized, slouchy pantsuit, to a storybook cage-skirt evening gown.
Mark believes in the power of a pretty dress and showed plenty, including a tulip-print halter slip and vaguely retro puffed-sleeved flannel bustier number. She impressed, too, with her affinity for knitwear, whether a simple logo sweater, curvy purple dress with S-placket or flirty patchwork skating frock. And she loves offbeat layering, often building looks atop vibrant, tricked-out vintage leotards.
It all coalesced into a delightful show with a different-drummer ethos. To wit, Mark walked her own runway dressed as one might imagine a naughty Elizabethan transported to the Follies Bergère – high-cut, fruit-print velvet bustier bodysuit with puffed taffeta sleeves, dark sheer hose and stilettos. How did she make that unexpected call? “With a lot of encouragement from my team.”
Writer Bridget Foley.
