Be Careful, ‘Fabulous Fruits’ will attract fruit flies - Area AW23 #NYFW

Watermelon -- an odd fruit. At first bite, it offers a delightful explosion of colourful though watery juice. The next few seem further diluted, but also bring splashes of tartness and real flavour. Move toward the rind, and you get a mealy mix and then...a bit more delight. (Unless there’s a tequila chaser involved. Then, perhaps a lot more delight).

So went the ebb-and-flow at Area, where Creative Director Piotrek Pansczczyk dubbed the brand’s audacious, red-hot spring buy-now-wear-now collection “Fabulous Fruits.” He opened not with a watermelon reference — that would come later — but with a flourish of ombréd pink and purple slices, expertly structured to resemble fanciful banana peels, and function (verb used loosely) as a flippy cocktail number. Instagram worthy? You betcha.

This introduced a whole bunch of bananas, most in various permutations of yellow (one managed to look like a banana bandage dress). The constructions impressed and on its own, each one looked swell, if bananas are your thing. But just as in comedy (old comics once adhered to the Rule of Three – no more than three jokes on a topic) – the law of diminishing returns set in.

Cue the watermelons, the first sighting made from two giant slices, one each for bodice and skirt, their curved sides fused at the waist. One could imagine Katy Perry rushing to order it – you know, as a healthy alternative to her Met Gala burger getup. After that, things got less tutti-frutti, and even included some appealing, wearable clothes (a bright yellow tailored jacket; a multi-neon track jacket-and-shorts set spiffed up with a train).

Pansczczyk took a respite from all of the fanciful, frenetic color with a black-and-white series. He featured more real clothes here, including what one could consider a take on glamour Goth: a big, all-black watermelon headdress-cum-top over pants. It was a blatant sight gag that somehow channeled the brilliantly challenging oeuvre of Hussain Chalayan. That’s some fruit cocktail.