It's All in the Wrist

Summer, like winter, can halt the momentum of city-dwellers. The extremes of temperature and other natural elements can be cause to drop on the nearest Bauhaus chair and call it a day.

What you should do instead is look for a window…a small, curtained portal to the creative tidal pools tending to exist during these quieter months. You might find yourself taken with watercolor painting, sailing, a language course, and in the case of many of debut’s curious visitors, the art of design. And it is indeed an art. The genesis of a beautiful garment is often a beautiful sketch. Of course draping and a keen eye come into play, but a sketch can be the livelihood of a designer’s aesthetic (ahem, Monsieur Lagerfeld).

In addition to the Basics Fashion Design book series we stock – an encyclopedic range of finely researched artistic resources – we’ve added a secret weapon to the mix: Hokey Croqui’s sketchpads.  This magical, rounded edge, sturdy notebook features sheets and sheets of pre-drawn mannequins. The artist chooses a favorite stance, his or her favorite sketch tool, and goes to work on the creative. When complete, photocopy the paper and watch the original mannequin’s figure disappear, leaving only a perfectly formed gown…or a Le Smoking…or, well, you get the picture. The layout is at once a shortcut and a training process, allowing for fluidity of the hand.

It’s the perfect lakeside occupation for the casual aesthete and a bit of a vacation for the obsessed sketch artist.   

$20.00 each, personalized by debut, and for your eyes only with a robin's egg blue organza closure

Annual Parsons Senior Showcase

Coming off what was by all accounts an uplifting CFDA Awards event (dubbed by many as the Fashion Academy Awards) it is fitting to ruminate on the recent design school graduates who will perhaps – hopefully – be future CFDA nominees and winners!

Debut New York at just two+ years of age is a relative gelding in the racey fashion world. And yet we’ve been fortunate to capture labels pre-buzz quite often; ergo we tend to be more attuned to the largely undiscovered than the newly acknowledged – it keeps us on our toes.

Fittingly, Debut’s Founder, Lisa Weiss will host the third Annual Parsons Senior Showcase at Debut with co-host – and designer – Sang A Im-Propp (the beautiful woman behind the impossibly chic accessories collection, Sang A).

On Tuesday, June 15th we will toast ten select senior designers and their collections, and subsequently turn our gallery over to this mysterious gaggle of names. Each collection will be housed in its own in-store space, and will be available for purchase at Debut through June 20th. On the eve of the 15th, Sang A will also bestow her exotic collection on us, including choice Summer 2010 bags and clutches, as well as a preview of Fall. We can only hope the showcase will be a glimpse of future fashion history!

Allez donc vous faire bronzer...sur la plage, sur la plage

Following Memorial Day there is usually a palpable shift in the New York-ness of the City, whereby an influx of vaguely unfamiliar visitors populates the island vicinity, while Manhattanites make an exodus “out East” or “upstate”. It’s a bit of an Alien planet feeling.

Rather pleasantly this weekend, however, it seems Manhattan welcomed visitors and residents both. There’s been a happy coexistence on the sidewalks and in stores, and everyone is out shopping. It’s steamy and hot, but with a strong wind coming off the trees. It’s a climate conducive to walking the neighborhoods in search of interesting new items one can only wear when the weather gets like this – that is to say oppressive, but solidly summer. The mission: to find what will keep us feeling light as air and ready to take all the season has to offer.

Debut was well prepared, having ordered in advance a variety of easy, sleek t-shirting options. Draped racerback tank dresses by SHIN are perfect for workday wardrobe fatigue** – they’ll glide on easily and instill a put-together sense of self, particularly paired with high wedges. The new Brazilian label, UMA, offers sheer, asymmetric tanks that appear intricate from afar, but on the body exude an ineffable, languid cool. With these separates we’ll take Manhattan, the Hamptons, Malibu and our plane ride to the South of France come August.

** And it doesn't hurt that summer's heat coincides with summer's sales - 30-40% off!

* UMA's draped "polkadot" tanks - $95.00 each

Why not throw on the lightest crackled leather Dariya Repina bag? The color and chrome chain pair perfectly with whites...$330.000

K-K-K-Kini

So it’s finally getting steamy in Manhattan, with the reflected light spilling down from blazing metal rooftops and whitewashed buildings along Lafayette. New Yorkers have started their expressive summer stylings, which frequently include limited coverage clothing. Where do they find these things? I asked myself the other day, passing a girl – very tan – wearing an entirely backless, entirely sideless, draped-front dress. I had to admit she looked sort of great and relaxed, particularly for a Tuesday. I diverted eyes to my own dark jeans and barn jacket and realized: it’s time for a change.

Suffice to say New Yorkers must pack away their bodies, secretly toning and tanning them year-round in some airtight Equinox or Crunch. And this is why Début jumped up and down for Kkini’s flashy-minimal bikinis, knowing all well that we wouldn’t be lacking for customers clambering. Metallic, slick and linear, they call to mind a non-preppy turn in a Hamptons Meier house – all blinding white surfaces and Hockney blue pools. They’d be just as at home in Los Angeles or Miami, and this suits New Yorkers perfectly: we’re malleable to the turf and terrain of all major fashion cities.

Kkini’s styles are named and grouped by destination: St. Tropez, Kauai, Monaco Deck Suite – themey, but apropos. The New York-based brand designs around fit, adjustability and versatility, while offering a slim edit of colors and textures aimed at mixing and matching. Many of the straps can be easily readjusted with one or two swift maneuvers to minimize tan lines, and all tops and bottoms are sold separately. Kkini will also throw us for a loop with a full stop, recession-averted, lounging-only sun suit – in our case, a pale pink and sequined Grecian draped number. And of course, all Kkini suits come in black.

Bikinis are intended to be mixed and matched as sets - all $210.00

Cool Coon.

Mandy Coon, a Texan by birth, and citizen of the fashion world via an earlier modeling career, is quite simply a cool girl.

She embarked on the requisite modeling jaunt, and ultimately landed in the far reaches of Japan where her interest in wearing other people’s clothes waned, and permitted for a creative surge of her own. She began to revise her relationship with fashion, creating special pieces upon request of friends, and in collaboration with others.

A subsequent return to New York was perhaps non-negotiable – feeling the prospective pull of a solid foundation she enrolled at FIT, and ultimately earned an internship with fellow New York designer and tastemaker, Camilla Staerk of the label, Staerk. This led to a full-time position with the company, during which Coon was dedicated to the pure aesthetic of Staerk’s – relatively austere without taking its own value too seriously.

And this is a sensibility Coon puts forth with her own collection; clearly well-versed in the school of minimalism with a bit of kink at the edges – but with Coon’s heightened sense of ease. There’s an element of bad behavior in a “dress” that zips apart into two pieces, and yet a simplicity in the doubleknit jersey. A romper with a cascading leather ruffle has a silk-linen upper with a loose, hanging fit, and a distressed leather bottom. Animal print is taken in a camouflaged direction, a refreshing point of view on the omnipresent leopard spots of the season, with silk chiffon watercolor-like prints. We can’t keep the short black dress and romper in our store, and for good reason: they’re perfect new pieces.

Sheer Tiger T-Shirt and Leather Bloomer Shorts

Silk and Leather Romper w/ Ruffle

GIGI.

A heady wink, a slight lean forward, a smooth chignon and the perfect hat recall this iconic 50s film. And entirely coincidentally the modern owner of this name, Gigi Burris, is a young designer who has mastered the art of millinery. Her work recalls an era when women dressed to thrill – both themselves and their admirers – in perfectly planned looks head to toe. And yet it is far from retro.

Burris attended Parsons where she studied millinery, and during this time traveled to Paris to integrate herself further with the storied mercerie shops. As Jeanne Lanvin and Gabrielle Chanel had done, why not recapture this somewhat languishing craft, and inject the glamour and atmospheric principles of luxury headwear into the modern girl’s wardrobe?

She graduated in 2009 with a BFA and nomination for Designer of the Year, and promptly founded her namesake label to begin producing bespoke pieces. The collection preceded the influx of audacity emanating from the music world (in the case of Rihanna, Lady Gaga et. al.), and compliments this sense of newness, while fitting perfectly with an Ascot (or Derby) crowd.

The work is deeply varied, ranging from dramatic, black swan swooping feathered numbers to petite, sharp pieces in pale shades and slight nods to punk. Fantastical, yet relevant and timeless – truly hats for the ages. 

Black and White and Green all Over...

Earth Day, Week, etcetera. Every day should be Earth Day! We all know consciousness is virtue when it comes to production, purchasing and living – but a life of green can be thought of as rough going, mentally and physically. The stiff, not quite colorful cottons, linens and wood chip infused cashmeres certified “organic” can make their own cases difficult when appealing to human senses.

A number of designers have risen above this initial challenge with the boon of major retailers, editors and customers rising to the cause. A unanimous sentiment amongst the progressive and stylish is that change is ALWAYS good, when done right – quality and transparency head to toe is the message now where “green” is concerned. The designers able to meet these standards are somewhat cultish as a result – quietly working to offer something beautiful, new and undiluted by harmful production practices, yet also working against the backlash of “eco” design.

As an answer to this, Debut is fortunate to have found Susan Woo, notably based purely on the seductive ease of her work rather than the specific aim to please a burgeoning ethics committee.

“Bonnie and Clyde”-inspired slim, silky pencil skirts, shoulder-baring tops and shirred body-hugging t-shirt dresses swayed our antennae in her direction, and there was an inherent value built into each garment – the knowledge that each piece is comprised of 100% natural, sustainable fiber sourced from like-minded partners. Her commitment and practice not only underscores, but allows the work to stand on its own, and yields this new sensibility of luxury: of wearing a deeply researched, impeccably worked garment.

Susan Woo Organic Fine Wool Cutout Dress - $1,013

Susan Woo Tangerine Silk Tank with Draped Cuffs - $298 (also available in black)

and

Ivory Silk Skirt with Vegetable Tanned Leather Corset Waist - $700

*Black Organic Cotton and Silk-sleeved Mini Dress (at top) - $537