Kimberly Ovitz (Q4939)
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Kimberly Ovitz is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Kimberly Ovitz |
Kimberly Ovitz is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Kimberly Ovitz's clothes sell. Or at least that seems to be the case, considering the buyers in her front row rushing to congratulate her postshow. (Linda Fargo, Ken Downing and the lot…) You've got to hand it to her—she takes customer feedback seriously.For instance, this season she's incorporated more color—partially because the buyers asked for it, and partially because it's what she's feeling. "It's important to be aware of needs," Ovitz said in her studio, just days before Thursday's runway show in the suddenly hot venue Café Rouge. (Once a part of the Hotel Pennsylvania, the whitewashed space—anchored by a grand, nonworking fountain—is owned by a real-estate firm and rented out for private events.)Throwing some bright spots into a show can feel off if the designer favors black and gray. But Ovitz's tight little azure blue knit dresses looked like the type of thing a girl who wears black all the time would try for fun. As did a purplish-gold-blue "radial" print—fancy word for tie-dye?—that was featured in several of the opening looks. We liked these styles the best. Probably because it's hard to get tie-dye right.Bugs were Ovitz's inspiration. Or, more precisely, the "natural defense mechanisms of animals and insects." It was evident in the prints, which looked like they could be an artist's rendering of a creepy-crawly. You could also see it in the armorlike details on some of the jackets and dresses (seams were stuffed to create a molded shape).Critters were more directly referenced in the jewelry, designed by Ovitz but produced at lightning speed by Shapeways, a 3-D printing company. Ovitz chose to work with the firm because shoppers would be able to order the pieces immediately after the show. The ear cuffs, rings, and necklaces—made with stainless steel or nylon and priced between $35 and $495—are already for sale on www.kimberlyovitz.com. How's that for customer service?
6 February 2013
For a far-flung inspiration, look no further than Kimberly Ovitz's Spring muse: Almagul Menlibayeva, a Kazakhstani performance artist who filters cultural experiences through the dual lenses of Soviet-era Russian futurism and a nomadic view of contemporary Kazakhstan. Sound heady? It is, but there are fewer muses as evergreen as the nomad, and through Menlibayeva's oeuvre, Ovitz honed in on the easy appeal of a wanderer's wardrobe.Draping, transparency, and paneled layering were the core elements at work here, and the collection was heavy on ephemeral dresses that moved fluidly around the body. A tighter edit would have made the subtle features on these pieces stand out more: There was raised textural detailing on an otherwise simple white dress, and the angle of the hems on relaxed pants was cut upward at the ankle like a triangle. As it was, the loosened-up silhouette made the few structured outerwear pieces really pop. A sweatshirt vest in heather gray and a cropped white jacket had a refreshing crispness while still looking lightweight enough to wear on the road. There were strictly body-con dresses, too, but the best looks incorporated movement and structure, such as a slinky jersey dress with one broad strap in textured leather. The collection's desert palette of black and nude (with one digital print abstracted from crystals spotted on a design field trip to the American Museum of Natural History and a few looks in emerald green) made the clothes feel like foundation pieces. They will look sharper with shoes (the models went barefoot) and should stand up to city styling.
5 September 2012
If every unsmiling girl in a motorcycle jacket is compared to Lisbeth Salander this week, it will be enough to make the biggest Steig Larsson fan turn to violence. But hey, it's still early, right? In a phone call a few days before her show, Kimberly Ovitz revealed that she had been inspired by warriors this season—and who better embodies a modern-day warrior than Larsson's disciplined and vengeful heroine? The hacker would have fit right in among Ovitz's all-black-clad crew of toughies, though she would have stuck with the collection's structured outerwear and drawn the line at the draped dresses.That divide marked the polarities at play—structure versus fluidity. They both came through in the moto jackets, which evinced a relaxed, lived-in drape despite their heft. Less successful was a knit body-con dress with armorlike embellishment that fell awkwardly between hard and soft. A gauzy chiffon column in white printed with a shock of wolf fur toed the line with much more sophistication. The best looks combined a mix of textures and tones: layered under a chunky oatmeal knit, a fluid olive jersey dress with a black faux fur necklace slung over one shoulder like an artillery belt was arresting and wearable. Sexy and fresh, it more than held its own against the hacker chic.
8 February 2012
The earthquake in Japan last March was on everyone's mind, and the fashion community in particular stepped forward with fundraising initiatives and gestures of hope. Kimberly Ovitz grew her collection from the event, becoming preoccupied, she said backstage before her show, with "disaster versus relief and man versus nature."The work of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, whose temporary cardboard housing structures are used to accommodate disaster refugees, was of particular significance: Ban's Curtain Wall House, with drapes in place of plaster, informed the collection's flowing silhouettes and ethereal feel. Breeze-catching pieces in sheer and lightweight fabrics—one of them made with Japanese paper—stayed rigged to the body with flyaway straps and subtle buckles, which were hints of utilitarianism rather than structural essentials. Embellishment was minimal, making the pattern of a white jacquard jacket pop against the loose knits and cottons.The mood was dreamy and somber, but the clothes, while repetitive, had an easy grace. The sheer white top that closed the show had an obilike belt that turned into a long, fluttering train; it looked beautiful billowing atop a pair of silky pajama pants.
7 September 2011
Kimberly Ovitz recently upped and left L.A. for New York, and the designer's new stomping grounds energized her first Resort collection. While there was a detectable urban undercurrent here, deserts and seascapes were the inspiration for the lineup's neutral-as-usual color palette and materials. A "sand dune" photograph print came on an asymmetric, pleated shift in lightweight silk, for example, and a striped intarsia knit echoed sand strata on a body-con dress and pair of leggings. You won't, however, be able to find Ovitz's most offbeat beach reference in stores: The designer styled everything with a pair of old platform heels she'd covered in glue, then dipped in sand. Unfortunately, the model couldn't walk in the shoes because there was no foot fastening, so an assistant had to help her step into them to show each look. Aside from that, the collection had a characteristic ease (although a romper that looked like a sheet wrapped and pinned under the legs seemed a littletooeffortless) that was best demonstrated by signature, slubby knits updated for Resort in linen gauze.
13 June 2011
It's good to see a young designer stretching herself. Not everything in today's Kimberly Ovitz presentation worked, but the collection represented an honest and honorable effort by Ovitz to expand her vocabulary as a designer. The shock of neon yellow that greeted visitors to the Pace Gallery this afternoon was clear enough proof that Ovitz has been grappling with how to work more color into her favored palette of neutrals, and that yellow helped her extrapolate a sporty tone that was also new to her. The designer deployed a number of technical fabrics this season, among them weather-resistant poly-blends and neoprene, and she highlighted the sport reference with yellow piping and topstitching (against blacks and grays) and lots of high-contrast paneling. The garments didn't always rise above the reference—a pair of paneled leggings in gray and yellow, for instance, would look plenty chic on a run, but a little off-key on the street—but she did hit some sweet spots. For instance, a stretchy neoprene-esque coat in gray marl lined with fur, nicely fused elegance and functionality. One of Ovitz's signatures is the little body-hugging dress, and this time she turned out an excellent one in a black and yellow stitched-on print, in another of those technical fabrics. It would have been good to see more of that material here, along with more pattern and texture in general.Ovitz was in her comfort zone with her draped knits and jersey pieces—all characteristically fine, they combined surprisingly well with the collection's punchier garments. For Fall, the designer is launching a lower-priced line, called Series, that will stock versions of the body-con dresses and jerseys that have girded her business; that should free her up to try further experimentation in her main line in seasons to come.
11 February 2011
As the saying goes, the fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. As designers go, L.A.-based Kimberly Ovitz is very much a hedgehog. Over the course of only a few seasons, Ovitz has distilled the look of her line to a few key elements: a palette of neutrals, silhouettes clean and geometric, equestrian-inspired details, and an emphasis on draped jerseys and knits that gives her collections a quality of surprising coziness. That's not a bad formula for a designer, especially one as punctilious about material and cut as Ovitz is, and the fundamental wearability of her clothes is attested to by the fact that they are sold widely, at good stores. And it's very much to Ovitz's credit that she's managed to make her formula feel non-formulaic, reinterpreting her themes every season through the prism of art and her own keen sense of the moment.This season, Ovitz's prism was the square, a form she says she reconsidered after viewing the exhibitionOn the Squareat the Pace Gallery. "I was interested in the ways artists as varied as Sol LeWitt and Louise Nevelson used the form of the square to create order out of chaos," Ovitz explained at her presentation at MAC + Milk yesterday. "It seemed like an interesting idea to apply that to clothes."Ovitz applied the idea quite directly, cutting cloth into large squares and then draping it into loose, nearly floor-length cardigans, and applying patterns of squares to a body-hugging minidress reminiscent of one her early best-sellers. "It's a commercial piece," she acknowledged cheerfully. Elsewhere, the square got stretched into a rectangle and repeated as cutouts on a leather vest, insets on leggings, and as tiered horizontal pleats on a pencil-skirted dress. The looks will be snapped up by retailers, and that's a credit to Ovitz, too—she has an impressive ability to take the conceptual and interpret it in an accessible way. Even so, one hungers to see a little more madness work its way into the designer's disciplined method. Previous collections have had more textural variety, which might have been welcome here. Ovitz has yet to really incorporate print into her collections. She clearly has the intellect and the design chops to address herself to that challenge, so it's a compliment when we say: We hope she tries.
8 September 2010
Her brand is just a year old, but Kimberly Ovitz said she was focused on reinterpreting her classic silhouettes in updated fabrics for Resort. A best-selling long-sleeve body-con dress featured a sheer back, while a draped-front frock came in a geometric-patterned burnt-out velvet inspired by the works of Sol LeWitt. The collection wasn't all about rehashing old ideas, though. Ovitz looked at corsetry and offered up modern twists in the form of an angular black suede number and a snug jumpsuit that laced up at the thighs. The standout piece was a white viscose gown that was shredded in the front—perfect for a non-traditional bride.
20 June 2010
Few designers in their second year of business can boast a presence on Net-a-Porter, not to mention placement in the top U.S. boutiques and an impressive international distribution. But such is the path of Kimberly Ovitz. The 26-year-old Los Angeles native's line successfully merges an edgy, urban look with a more laid-back, SoCal style. For Fall, the discovery of a pair of eighteenth-century yearbooks had her thinking about modernizing old-fashioned silhouettes, evident in a deconstructed herringbone suit and a pleated chiffon skirt cut thigh-high on one side and left ankle-grazing on the other. Ovitz also likes to pepper each collection with references to her equestrienne past. This season's riding shirt with asymmetric placket was a chic update on a classic, though an oversize cardigan trimmed in braided horsetail-like fringe might have some people refusing to jump. As for how this collection builds on her previous efforts, the designer was direct: "It's pretty much a souped-up version of everything I've been doing," she said. We doubt her growing list of retailers will complain.
7 February 2010