The lack of attention paid to Risto Bimbiloski's work is one of the (many) things about fashion that I seriously don't understand — this guy basically rules, and the stuff he sends down the runway is way more creative than a lot of the cocktail-dress-fare we're so consistently fed.
(Of course, I understand that a lot of people have the attitude of, 'why would you buy designer clothes?' And maybe I'm biased on this and just defending my own purchases — the piece-de-resistance of my own closet very well may be a one-sleeved drapey black number from his FW '09 collection that I would wear to the damn grocery store if I could, but that's beside the point.)
The Macedonian designer is known for his unusual prints. In the collection he showed Friday at Metropolitan Pavilion, he claims to have been inspired by the ASCII-esque animated GIF pixel art of Nicolas Sassoon. He also described the vibrant color palettes as inspired by other visual digital references, including the colors reflected by CDs, which presumably is the explanation for the kaleidoscopic leggings, enormous quilted parkas, and something like a teal-and-black print silk jogging suit a la 1994-high-school-gym-teacher that came down the runway in the first half of the show.
The second half of the collection was a bit more reserved and wearable, and focused more on layered styling than unusual prints. The deconstructed knits, muted colors, and grunge details (thumb holes, unraveling scarves, head wraps and knit hats, cobalt blue nail polish) seemed more appropriate for the teenaged students of aforementioned crazy 90s gym teacher — and who's going to argue with that?
(More images available at Risto's blog.)
