VPL (Q8794)
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American fashion label
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- Vpl
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | VPL |
American fashion label |
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Statements
Since moving fully into activewear, VPL designer Victoria Bartlett has made a point of presenting her clothes in action. Last season she shot aerial artist Amanda Topaz in an upstate New York quarry. For Fall she partnered with multimedia artist Ugo Rondinone on a performance that was streamed live from a Harlem gallery. (You can watch ithere.) Bartlett dressed her lineup of rhythmic gymnasts and break-dancers in the season's wares, illustrating, she said, "how these clothes are really meant to look in motion."As for the fashion? Bartlett further built on the ideas she's been developing for years. Collaging was an oft-used technique: She spliced together waxed terry cloth and neoprene on a collarless jacket, or inserted ribbed stripes into everything from athletic tights to wicking tops. Spongy bamboo fleece sweatshirts were piped with contrasting colors, and a techy stretch denim was used to make everything from sports bras to running tanks. Bartlett really wants this stuff to be worn before, during, and after exercise, and the billowy sweatpants, drawstring skirts, and color-blocked waterproof jackets made a good case for that. But most of what was shown will work best in the gym. And given how much the activewear market as a whole is still growing, that's not a bad place to be.
13 February 2015
Victoria Bartlett made a subtle but significant change to her collection for Pre-Fall: The signature "VPL" metal tag attached to each garment is now made of latex. "People can't work out wearing metal," Bartlett reasoned during a preview. There were always bits of the designer's contemporary loungewear that could be worn to the gym, but now it's all workout-ready. This season the idea was to "reinforce the VPL DNA," as Bartlett put it, by doing lots of color and fabric blocking. Stretch-denim insets made you look twice at a pair of running leggings, while a draped sweatshirt and matching sweatpants with accents of hot orange offered the perfect wear-all-Saturday look. Bartlett designed a square-neck halter sports bra for her friends who need extra support, although the silhouette was appealing regardless. And her take on a classic activewear look—a trompe l'oeil marl stretch fabric—was subtler than most, done in soft brown and charcoal. Many activewear fanatics like to wear their pieces long after the sweat evaporates, and Bartlett has made that an easy thing to do.
18 December 2014
How to test the validity of fashion-y activewear? Show how it moves. For her Spring presentation, VPL designer Victoria Bartlett rigged up her Mercer Street store so that a few professional acrobats could twist and turn and flip and leap about in her latest collection. Bartlett shifted much of her focus to performance-driven garments about two years ago, and while her aesthetic has remained intact, she is determined more than ever to make things that are truly useful. This season she introduced no fewer than seven new fabrics with the hopes of making her line even more breathable, durable, and fashionable, too. "It's all about a dual shelf life," she said, as shots of green juice were passed out to guests. (For those who aren't so focused on healthy living during fashion week, there was wine.)While the live performance drew plenty of attention, the crowd got to see a bigger breadth of the collection via a short film that Bartlett shot upstate in a quarry a few weeks ago. She enlisted aerial artist Amanda Topaz to perform and also collaborated with her on choreography. Topaz and her team of high flyers wore a series of bra tops, boy shorts, and capris that were color-blocked in lavender and charcoal, white and brick red, or turquoise and black. (P.S., it was 45 degrees outside when they were filming.) It was all good-looking, but the pieces printed with a Blinky Palermo-inspired design were the ones that'll really take you from Equinox to a house party.
11 September 2014
Last season, Victoria Bartlett initiated a new phase of VPL, effectively relaunching her brand as a line of high-style performancewear. This time out, she made more changes, showing a concise ten looks via digital presentation, wherein a number of Bartlett's cool-girl pals demonstrated the functionality of the clothes. The aesthetic remained very classic VPL—lots of gussets, color-blocking, and so on—but the focus here was on construction and fabrication that served performance. The classic VPL bra, for instance, which underpinned so many of the label's looks over the years, was remade to be properly supportive. Materials that wick were emphasized throughout. Ditto waterproofing. Meanwhile, the biggest evolution here in terms of style found Bartlett deploying some uncharacteristically laddish silhouettes—baggy skater shorts and track suits, for example. All in all, it was another fine example of workout chic.
7 February 2014
"Not activewear fashion, but fashion that's active," is how Victoria Bartlett described her recent philosophy shift at VPL. Long before other designers latched on to the sporty trend en masse, Bartlett was creating athletic-inspired clothes that both she and her customers often wound up wearing during workouts. So it made sense when, beginning with Spring ’14, the designer started using high-tech fabrics that wick away moisture, offer UV protection, or even nourish the skin. (SeaCell, in particular, incorporates seaweed fibers, which promote the release of nutrients.)While these new and improved VPL pieces now perform better than ever at the gym, they still make strong sartorial statements on city sidewalks and beyond. Bartlett demonstrated their range with her creatively styled lookbook. Second-skin leggings were layered underneath rolled-up, asymmetric track pants, and the label's signature sports bras were worn backward. Other highlights here included a bomber jacket/sweatshirt hybrid, color-blocked tube skirts, and breathable knit pullovers featuring harness-like bands that curve around the shoulders. A standout pair of polar-fleece sweatpants, which were tailored to resemble relaxed men's tuxedo trousers (but still had an elastic waistband) nicely exemplified Bartlett's fusion of fashion and physicality. Forward-thinking ideas like hers beg for a collaboration with a major sports brand such as Nike.
11 December 2013
Being ahead of the curve can be both a blessing and a curse. Victoria Bartlett, for instance, is a designer who frequently finds herself too far in the vanguard, particularly in terms of her body-centricity and fluency with the aesthetic vocabulary of activewear. Other brands have been incorporating athletic influences lately, but Bartlett can justifiably claim to have got there first: Her debut VPL show, it's worth recalling, featured models exercising at an actual gym. That was in 2004, and today, almost ten years later, Bartlett returned to the gymnasium as she ushered in a new era of VPL. In brief, this presentation marked the end of VPL as a "fashion" brand with an athletic signature and the launch of VPL as an activewear brand proper. The look of the label hasn't changed—if anything, it was concentrated here—but the materials have, with an emphasis on technical fabrics that repel water and wick sweat and "well-being" textiles such as seaweed blends.As Bartlett explained backstage today, this evolution of VPL is really less of a categorical shift than it might seem, inasmuch as many women (this writer included) already wear its active pieces out and about, as daywear. "You see women all the time, running around in their sports bra and their leggings," Bartlett said. "This is how women really do dress. And they want options." On that point, you could argue that what's been missing in activewear is a strong point of view, precisely the thing Bartlett brings to the table. You could also hypothesize that plenty more brands are going to get into the activewear game, because women wear that stuff, and it sells. Only Victoria Bartlett could stay ahead of the curve by going back to her roots.
5 September 2013
Victoria Bartlett got edgy this season. That was true both literally and figuratively: Her new VPL collection was full of squared shapes and sharp angles rather atypical of the brand. It also conjured an "edgy" downtown aesthetic in surprisingly overt ways. Bartlett isn't a designer who usually feels compelled to offer her take on iconic pieces like, say, a motorcycle jacket; this season, she offered two. There was also a preponderance of leather, all faux, and a fierce red, white, and black print inspired by the work of artist Wade Guyton. There was an unmistakable hard attitude here. Ironically, that attitude found its best expression in soft, fluid looks—there was a kind of sneer to Bartlett's fantastic, billowy wide-leg trousers, especially the version executed in the Guyton-inspired print, while her broad, faux-leather tees had been given a grungy drape. Together, they elegantly communicated a careless, "don't mess with me" vibe. Bartlett's shoulders had a lot of personality, too—they traded between an impassive, broad slouch and a built-up, angled silhouette. Going from one shoulder shape to the other was a bit like watching a stalking cat suddenly stand up and hiss. Indeed, the collection as a whole gave the same impression, given that the usual energy of VPL is a sui generis mix of the abstracted and the earthy. But these clothes? Frankly, you wouldn't want to get on their bad side. The attitude worked for Bartlett. It was good to see her baring her teeth.
8 February 2013
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, VPL gotta VPL. Even as she was describing pre-fall as a new experiment with volume, Victoria Bartlett was showing off a recent lookbook for which a model had been coaxed to contort into yoga's most om-breaking asanas. The athleticism at the core of the brand is still there. But that's not to say this collection wasn't a departure, or that it wasn't a welcome one. Drape has always been a key element in Bartlett's arsenal, but here silhouettes were positivelyloose. That felt fresh. So did new experiments with lamination, which led the way to crinkly "cracked and fractured" elements, in Bartlett's words. But lest it all sound too damninglycomfortable—it surely is, but no tarring this line with the negatives of that brush—consider the mind-bending puzzle presented by a standout sweater, striated like a geode, that's woven on Japanese looms as a seamless tube. You don't so much wear it, as it orbits you.
18 December 2012
They say that the best way to treat a fear of heights is to go bungee jumping. Face your demons and all that. VPL designer Victoria Bartlett didn't conquer any phobias with her latest collection, but today's show did see her going mano a mano with some of her strong aversions. Pastels, for instance. Long skirts. Stiffness. Sequins. And Bartlett's efforts to master elements she has typically avoided paid off: This was, to put it plainly, a very good show.Not that Bartlett jettisoned her VPL vocabulary. Not at all: Activewear references, skin tones, and draping were all present and accounted for, alongside other label signatures. Bartlett's strategy here was to assimilate new ideas into her vernacular, for instance by attaching a hard metallic shoulder to a draped dress, or elaborating her characteristic backward-facing volumes by blowing them up and making a gown-size parachute skirt. Elsewhere, the designer faced down a couple of unfamiliar silhouettes: There were slim, pencil-shaped looks, the best of which comprised a squared-off black tank top with metallic embellishment and a trim matching skirt; there were also voluminous wide-leg trousers, trimmed with burn-out sequins, a recurring collection motif.Those sequins looked to be of a piece with this season's key print, a stripey blur of color that Bartlett said was inspired by watching the documentaryGerhard Richter Painting.She was, she explained, trying to capture a sense of motion. That was fitting, given the forward momentum Bartlett has generated for herself with this collection: As solid as it was on its own, the show also contained a trove of ideas for future exploration. This was perhaps nowhere more true than in the finale. Typically, the last dozen or so looks that Bartlett sends out at her shows are a coda, featuring VPL lingerie, bathing suits, and elaborate, borderline ridiculous experimental pieces. This time out, the see-through jumpsuits and anoraks looked like the kind of thing people will want to be wearing out on the street come spring.
7 September 2012
The London Olympics, which have turned many usually oblivious heads toward the world of sport, should be a boon for Victoria Bartlett. Athleticism underlines her collections; she's part designer, part kinesthesiologist. For Resort, scuba-suit snugness met soft draping. There were intricately seamed tops that hugged, then flowed, and open-weave, netlike knits that hung appealing off the body. She looked to cubism to create color-block dresses in mixed fabrics, like ultrathin Japanese suede and Cupro, punched up here and there with patches of sequins. ("Deconstucted bling," she called it.) Cuts, slashes, and plunging necks revealed the underthings underneath, the foundation and literal building blocks of her collection. (Visible Panty Line: not just a name but a promise, too.) The ever-present athletic theme was expressed in the long dresses from VPLX, the ready-to-wear capsule that grew, quite literally, out of the bras. They looked ready for a red carpet in an Olympic Village.
2 June 2012
The VPL collection shown today represented a strong return to first principles for designer Victoria Bartlett. With the Michael Clark danceMmmas her jumping-off point, Bartlett was moved to reconsider the movement of the body, and the way material twists, turns, and releases against it. In practice, this meant that a lot of garments wrapped around the bodice and fell away at soft angles. The collection was heavy on dancers' stretch materials, notably a dense délavé in a rocky gray, and slick draped jerseys.The other idea Bartlett took away fromMmmwas its play of light and shadow, a theme she worked through in a variety of back-to-front color-blocked pieces, such as a longish dress draped with shiny plum-colored jersey in front, and matte cream-colored jersey in back. The light/shadow meme also meant that Bartlett adhered, even more than usual, to her palette of neutrals—alongside her traditional skin tones (looking very fresh, at present), she showed a lot of white, silver, gray, and black. Less traditional for VPL, there were a lot of dagger-hem leather jackets and mannish coats on the runway; the leather, it turned out, was faux. But it was totally convincing.The real winners in the collection, however, were this season's knits, in particular Bartlett's shrugged-on, oversize sweaters in mottled bouclé and marled wool, and the dense black sweater, fitted to the body, with knit-in braid and armored shoulders. The knit emphasis was reaffirmed in the show's finale, which included a plethora of elaborate garments that should see a lot of editorial action come fall.
10 February 2012
For Victoria Bartlett, pre-fall is about "playing with your prime pieces—manipulating and articulating them to feel fresh." One could consider the VPL designer an explorer of the female physique. Season after season, Bartlett finds new, often obscure parts of the body to highlight with her contoured, casual designs. Looking at the clothes up close, you might notice the random (although never accidental) tucks and seams trailing up the arch of the spine, for example, or variegated stripes that curve along the hipbone. VPL is known for its urban, athletic aesthetic and body-conscious silhouette. The matching blazer and cropped pant set in the first look was cut from a super-stretchy chambraylike material that really sucks you in and perks everything up—seriously gravity-defying. But the collection's standout item didn't have such a strict fit. A dolman-sleeve hooded jacket (outerwear has reportedly been a strong point of sales for VPL recently) with a structured cocoon shape met right at the intersection of comfort and style. Bartlett modeled the hoodie and said, "I love the lightness of the heavy."
4 December 2011
Today's VPL show was a strong, exceptionally focused outing. Victoria Bartlett has a tendency—winning for the most part—to let her collections sprawl through a lot of ideas. But her latest effort lasered in on one big reference—plate tectonics—and extrapolated it, with tremendous concision, through all her brand signatures. The geologic theme expressed itself in various ways: Layered looks echoed the shifting of plates and seams opening up in the earth; volcanic prints swirled with ash gray and lava-hot neon red. And there were metaphors of mutability, like a long dress with straps dangling down the sides that could be pulled up and worn short.The dominant VPL signature, of course, is body-consciousness. It's a theme Bartlett treats as no one else does, usually eschewing any implication of sex and instead exploring the form and movement of human anatomy. This collection, though, did have a whiff of sex about it—there was something ineffably sensual about the shrugged-on, asymmetric sweaters, and the cut-open bandeaus and black-banded bikinis had a graphic thrust that was Helmut Newton-esque. Meanwhile, the come-on of a long, dun-colored T-shirt dress was more overt: It was simply draped wide open at the back.Bartlett really exerted herself with her materials this season. She made convincing suits out of neon coral neoprene and a white Tyvek-like coated linen, for instance, and her big finale featured exploratory, editorial looks crafted out of foam. There was also a subtle experiment going on with the shoes: Several pairs were vegan, but it was impossible to tell which. All in all, it was one of Bartlett's best collections yet.
9 September 2011
Suffer in the name of fashion. That's not an adage VPL designer Victoria Bartlett adheres to. "It's really about the sensuality of the clothes and the fabric," she said of her Resort collection. "Not necessarily a specific theme."Theme or not, she revisited several concepts from her Fall collection, continuing to play with imbalance and juxtaposing high and low fabrics for a comfort-meets-chic look. One of her most successful ventures in this area was a black French terry T-shirt dress with a blue stripe of neoprene (borrowed from her swimsuits) for contrast. A body-hugging, washed metallic pencil skirt with white rubber piping also looked smart. A cropped cocoon jacket paired with camel riding pants was her feminine take on men's suiting. For all of the oppositions at play—masculine versus feminine and high versus low—it was a winning collection.
9 June 2011
Today's VPL show was a relatively stripped-down affair, from the simplified styling to the back-to-basics concept that inspired the design of the clothes. This season Victoria Bartlett was playing with stretching and folding; as she explained before the show, she wanted to dig into the fundamentals of how fabric moves. "The kind of opposed actions," she said. "Stretching is expanding—it's suspending, it's draping. Folding is all about decrease, and a hard edge."Most of the looks in this collection found a way to counterpoise those two actions. To wit, a stretchy jersey top with a stiff contrasting fabric folded on the shoulder like a tiny wing, or a draped nylon sweatshirt with origami-style folds down its front. The collection was occasionally too literal—the last look before the lingerie finale was an oddball jersey dress with shiny hip flaps—but overall Bartlett wasn't too religious about following her theme. Several of her most winning looks, like her yummy knits or the wrap jacket and short-sleeve coat in a metallic furlike fabric, hardly seemed to bear any relation to the conceptual inspiration at all.One of the strongest sideline ideas was Bartlett's playful reinterpretation of the suit: She showed a few iterations, including a skirt and matching jacket cut from panels of contrasting boiled wool and a neoprenelike mesh. That suit—such as it was—and a cocoon-ish coat mixing the same materials offered a good primer on how to introduce "active" elements into sophisticated clothes. Another good sideline was Bartlett's play with latex, especially in the finale, which featured lingerie that was truly weird, impractical, and great. (She also developed a nice abstract print, in tones of brown, from her play with stretched and folded latex.) All in all, it was a typically good outing for VPL, one characterized less by Bartlett's formal explorations and more by her desire to, quite simply, make distinctive, wearable clothes.
12 February 2011
Victoria Barlett isn't the kind of girl who played dress-up with her Barbies as a kid; she's the kind who pulled her dolls apart before reassembling them. The designer is obsessed with the human anatomy—pastVPLhits include "femur" and "patella" pants and the "deltoid" sweater. For pre-fall, she showed a quintessential collection of underwear-as-outerwear looks that highlighted unexpected body parts. One sweater had slashes at the shoulder blades, while a knit dress featured a very on-trend slit at the midriff. Nude leggings gave the illusion of spray-painted knees, and a cropped cocoon jacket had sleeves "rounded like an architectural overextension of the shoulder," as Bartlett described it. As per usual, she "threw everything off balance a bit" by mixing high with low, sporty with delicate. A tailored, jersey blazer came paired with ruched trousers in parachute nylon, for example; an oversize cover-up was cut in a silver that was more matte than metallic, taking on the look of tarnished chain mail. The British designer, who opened her first store last month in her adopted hometown of New York City, continues to articulate her distinctive point of view.
9 December 2010
This ought to be a very good Spring for Victoria Bartlett. For the past year or so, the influence of her line, VPL, has been glimpsed in hints and snatches, as other designers began to assimilate Bartlett's sui generis vision into their own collections. Any time you saw a pair of high-waist underpants worn alone, or caught sight of a bandeau bra and a wink of skin below a cutout top, you couldn't help but think of VPL. This season, the line's influence is really making its presence felt: Overlap layering; visible underpinnings; transparent and skin-colored fabrics; asymmetry; athletics-inspired silhouettes; loose, long draping; bolts of neon against neutrals; construction in conversation with anatomy. These are some of VPL's key motifs, and they are starting to emerge as a lingua franca of Spring '11.Bartlett, for her part, isn't budging. Her show today explored the signature VPL themes from a new angle: the idea of suspension. The concept was executed more and less literally. Suspenders, halters, and apronlike construction hung garments just off the body; elsewhere, draping created a similar anti-gravitational effect. The look was especially appealing on open-back knits, trapeze dresses, draped jersey pants that ought to fly at retail, and a standout hood-less parka. Tailoring got a workout, too. One of the strongest looks was a flared, short-sleeve jacket of silver linen, paired with matching peg-leg pants.Though the collection hit the VPL trademarks hard, it also developed the brand's vocabulary in terms of fabrication and print. Bartlett has generally been pretty sparing with print, but this time she went for it, putting squiggles and sketches inspired by the Egyptian artist Ghada Amer on leggings and bras and applying an eye-searing abstract pattern to skirts and dresses. Then there was the jacquard, hand-painted and then hand-woven and turned into a structured bodysuit and trapeze-shape apron top. The jacquard exemplified the ways that Bartlett has been building a textural richness into her line over the past few outings. She explored other kinds of textures in her finale, a selection of showpieces hand-knit or made of sheer, hand-stitched organza. It's nice to see her playing with earthier fabrications, and more delicate ones.As usual, it's worth remarking on the accessory collaborations. Again, Bartlett turned out several winning pairs of shoes with L.D.
Tuttle, and lots of cool statement jewelry with Lizzie Fortunato, Orly Genger, and Alyssa Norton. (Bartlett is a generous collaborator.) But the really new accessory on her runway came courtesy of Bartlett's longtime partner-in-crime, Brian Crumley. Working with a glass blower, he created backward-facing necklaces that sat on the top of the spine, supporting the neck. They were truly weird, and truly beautiful.
11 September 2010
Victoria Bartlett was inspired by contrasts this season. The designer paired voluminous tops with second-skin leggings, and peppered her mostly neutral palette with pops of turquoise and mustard yellow. Among the highlights: loose-knit sweaters that slouched off the shoulder and a bright asymmetric dress that looked to be silk but was actually a performance fabric. Bartlett injected some of her signature detail—the ones that cause a relatively straightforward garment to go slightly askew—but these clothes, on the whole, were more wearable than recent collections. That's good news for fans and retailers alike.
17 June 2010
Is Victoria Bartlett picking up cues from Lady Gaga and, more recently, Ke$ha? The sheer volume of briefs-as-pants the designer turned out for Fall is a strong argument. Or it could just be seen as classic VPL (which stands for "visible panty lines," remember). Whatever the reason, underwear-as-outerwear was an even stronger than usual focus for Bartlett this season. In addition to her classic color-blocked underpinnings, she showed a patchwork bodysuit with cutouts, gold sequin bandeaus, and a flesh-toned spandex crop-top-and-biker-short combo. That's not to say the models were sent shivering down the runway. Most were swaddled in some kind of enviably cozy topper—a pressed faux-fur sweatshirt, say, or a metallic wool cardigan. "For me, it's always about things that are falling off, splitting apart, and being put back together," Bartlett said when interviewed in her studio the week before her show. Case in point: some sliced jersey dresses with slipping shoulder straps and open backs (too open, perhaps—it's tough for those of us without catwalker proportions to imagine wearing said numbers outside the house). Still, in a crowded fashion-week schedule, kudos to Bartlett for creating her own distinct look. And amid the variety of today's offerings, there was something for every girl—even us non-models and non-pop sensations—to slip into.
13 February 2010
Victoria Bartlett focused on reworking classic VPL pieces for pre-fall, updating the shape of her signature crisscrossing Breaker tank and adding an asymmetrical bra to her popular line of underpinnings. Slouchy trousers and an oversize blazer cut in a dressy silk is her off-kilter answer to the suit; it's not exactly boardroom attire, but her creative-class customers will surely approve. Versatility has been an important talking point this season, and Bartlett whipped up one of the most all-purpose looks we've seen: a soft jersey long-sleeve shirt and legging loungewear set that's comfortable enough to sleep in but can morph into streetwear when paired with one of her draped skirts.
16 December 2009
There's a reason Victoria Bartlett's Spring theme, anatomy, felt so right. "I probably should have been a doctor," she said. "I'm obsessed with anything related to the human body." After all, the designer's aesthetic is heavy on bandaged jersey dresses, spliced knits, and sheer fabrics. Her current collection didn't stray from these VPL staples but built on them with the addition of prints—a first for the brand. Don't expect florals here, though: Bartlett used an X-ray of her skull she had blown up into abstraction. Elsewhere, gauzy vests and cardigans hinted at the motif while adding a lightness that's emerged as an early trend in the New York collections. The diagnosis? Many standout pieces Bartlett's fans will want to further examine.
11 September 2009
"All of this is about layering and playing and manipulating shapes," said Victoria Bartlett as she flicked through racks in her studio filled with clothes in shades of nude, cream, blue, and gunmetal. Bartlett might not have strayed far from the lingerie-based label's DNA, but by staying hyper-focused she produced one of her stronger and more refined collections. Resort's jumpsuits, pieced and color-blocked tops, chain-trimmed coats, and cowled toppers hit just the right balance between sportiness and fluid drapery.
14 June 2009
Deconstructing classic pieces and putting them back together a little askew, Victoria Bartlett played with shapes this season. Seaming on knits formed new contours, and there were unexpected openings here and there—as on a pair of long, turtleneck sweater dresses slit all the way up the sides—that allowed the designer's signature underpinnings to peek through.While bandagelike back-brace belts left some models looking like they'd suffered a serious injury, the majority of the looks were well-made, slightly off-kilter basics. And that's something customers are investing in more and more these days.
13 February 2009
"Velocity" was the title of Victoria Bartlett's show—and the collection did indeed show that she's speeding in the right direction. The season's theme was aviation, but Bartlett kept it from getting overwhelming. There were lots of cleverly worked airplane and pilot details, from nylon straps to rolled, ballooning sleeves to cords that ran through knits and tees. A black parachute jumpsuit was one of the best examples of the genre we've seen this season (which is saying a lot). Save for a pop of hot pink that looked terrific on Bartlett's new swimwear, the palette was desaturated. The collection won't appeal to everyone—actually, the Sopwith Camel-esque jodhpur leggings probably won't appeal to anyone—but the Bartlett brand is flying higher than ever.
10 September 2008
"This collection is all easy pieces to wear and put together," explained Victoria Bartlett of her sophomore Resort lineup for VPL. The designer stayed comfortably within her perennial edgy-sporty range, showing smart separates like a metallic linen dress that could be topped with a cozy oversize cashmere sweater. Signature bra-detailed tops, shown with pieced skirts, kept to the label's spirit of blurring the lines between innerwear and out, as did lingerielike bikinis.
29 June 2008
Victoria Bartlett, who focused on dancers last season—and suffragettes the season before that—stepped away from the barre and turned her attention to another of her obsessions: sculpture. Hans Bellmer's mechanical dolls and Louise Bourgeois' "pendulous, glandular" forms were of particular interest, as the designer took, to quote the program, "a journey across the geography of the body." Bartlett herself translated that to mean that "the curving and seaming follow the musculature lines, which is an inherent VPL theme."If the concept was a bit heavy, its execution was pleasingly light. It's not necessary to have an art history degree to understand the appeal of a great knit, a sturdy coat with a subtly rounded asymmetric hem, or a slightly off-kilter silken shift dress. One of Bartlett's collaborations this season was with Icelandic hair artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir, also known as Shoplifter, who contributed some hirsute accessories that were cleverly integrated into the presentation. It was a well-honed collection, and, despite the highfalutin sources, more down-to-earth than Bartlett's last.
5 February 2008
Victoria Bartlett likes to center her shows around a theme. Last season, the stylist-turned-designer (recently nominated for a CFDA/VogueFashion Fund award) created a cast of suffragettes and other feminist heroes. This time, her collection's title was Shape Shifting Dance, and she dropped the names Martha Graham and Vaslav Nijinsky as visual references. She practiced a few new moves with the introduction of a "younger, active" line, VPL II, which was styled into the show, along with lingerie.As it happens, activewear is one of this week's emerging trends, and it's something that has consistently been part of Bartlett's design vocabulary. She worked it to her advantage in some of the stonger pieces from the main collection today—bandage swimsuits and color-block leggings reminiscent of the lounge-y body garments dancers in the corps de ballet wear in rehearsal.Overall, though, the effort felt cluttered. Minimalism is not Bartlett's thing, but today there was a definite surfeit of layers and accessories. The addition of distracting sculptural showpieces, like the sets of shoulder extenders that looked like nothing so much as football gear, was a misstep.
9 September 2007
"I wanted to do this even before Nancy Pelosi was voted in," said VPL designer Victoria Bartlett, whose show—dubbed "Modern Suffragettes"—was a sartorial homage to pioneering women through the ages. Drawing loosely from women ranging from Victorian suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst to Guardian Angel Lisa Sliwa, Bartlett gave herself a broad aesthetic palette, while keeping the utilitarian slant that has always enabled her collection to evoke the strength of the female form. This show built on the designer's longtime love of the details on uniforms and institutional garb, with a new and mostly successful emphasis on more literal military inspirations, such as well-tailored wool pieces liberally detailed with patch pockets. These were mixed with the forward-thinking, fluid jersey pieces that are a VPL mainstay, while styling touches like berets and boots underlined the march-for-a-cause theme.Bartlett is doing some pioneering of her own. Having just garnered a Fashion Group nomination, and having joined up a year ago with a Japanese silent partner, this stylist-turned-designer is turning what began as a sideline lingerie label into a complete business. Bartlett's wider focus was apparent in the specially commissioned shoes made with Jean-Michel Cazabat and her great slouchy handbags in lightly distressed leather. They were big enough, of course, to hold everything for a woman who is busy changing the world.
7 February 2007
Victoria Bartlett's VPL began as a lingerie line, but the designer has been broadening her focus with every season. Spring saw her dive deeper into ready-to-wear, with a collection that was inspired by water, specifically the glaciers and waterfalls of Iceland. It followed that there were some overt nautical references: drawstring rope belts pulled through slightly bell-hemmed dresses; striped tops in a burst of orange. And bringing the point home was a splatter print. But the water theme was also worked organically through construction, via the use of round shapes, sequins with a raindrop gleam, and dresses with fabric cascading down the front, or a train that swished like a fishtail. Bartlett hasn't forgotten her line's origins, and spring featured a successful balance between innerwear and outerwear, as silky vintage tap pants were paired with sporty pieces like trapeze-back picot jackets. The collection remains difficult to categorize, but even without a clever finale featuring a parade of models under clear umbrellas, it's obvious that Bartlett isn't wet behind the ears.
8 September 2006
You're unlikely to see any panty lines at a VPL show, because what started out as a lingerie-goes-to-the-gym line in 2003 has each season become more focused on sportswear. For fall 2006, boy-cut panties and workout-inspired pieces took second place to dresses, cardigans—even a trenchcoat.Ecco Domani winner Victoria Bartlett set a laidback mood from the first look. In separates like slouchy "slope-neck" turtlenecks, cocoon vests with huge snap closures, and several jackets, the go-with-the-flow vibe was just right. But when it was translated into wide culottes, rolled-up shorts, and pants with pocket pouches on the outside, the flow outweighed the fashion. The color-blocked pieces Bartlett favors—and which often best incorporate the collection's sporty sensibility—looked strong, especially some corset tops and a peach-and-white dress with a little shine. A gray top and skirt cinched at the waist was streamlined and chic, and the highly desirable sneaker boots that Bartlett developed with Report added a cool-girl edge. But the finale looks—just-for-show vests made out of ballerina shoes worn by models with veil-wrapped heads—didn't add much. Bartlett doesn't need theatrics to draw attention to her ever-evolving talent.
8 February 2006
Jessica Simpson in her Daisy Duke attire would have fit right in at Victoria Bartlett'sHands on a Hard Bodyshow. Held at the Audi showroom on Park Avenue, the set consisted of a rotating platform, four lingerie-clad models drinking beer (from the can) with male escorts, and a shiny red sports car. It was a vignette straight out of a gimmicky car show, and somehow, it worked. Bartlett, whose line has evolved from lingerie to casual/active sportswear, showed a mature collection with inspired details.Baggy skorts made of sports mesh in huge hip-hop proportions were paired with "slip bras." Miniskirts were contoured and color-blocked or trimmed with diaphanous metallic silk. Mesh gussets on tanks and tees "represent perspiration," said the designer, who was playing with the idea of fitness and "the quest for body perfection." A "nude mega tie hoody" was a silky coat for a girl on the go from the gym to… who knows where. As usual, the accessories were a hit. Bartlett made Airtex sandals and sock boots for Report. Brian Crumley provided terrycloth accessories, including unusual neckpieces that sat like triangles at the nape and were connected by a chain in front. Alyssa Norton's woven chain-and-fabric sweatbands, and Josh Hickey's ostrich egg necklaces finished the show, and had an unusual sex appeal.
14 September 2005
Still carrying a torch for Michael Phelps? VPL can help. For her first effort as the sole designer, Victoria Bartlett created a collection that included activewear, lingerie, and separates—all inspired by the Olympics. Her show/installation was staged at the Gym, a sparkling new high-tech workout facility, and she put the models through their paces—literally. They rode the bikes, skipped rope, and lifted weights in Bartlett's voile cardigans and tees, bandage racer tops, boy-cut panties, and Lycra leggings, sometimes augmented by Josh Hickey's ingenious "beads of sweat" necklace. But all the showmanship didn't overshadow the evolution of the line, thankfully. What started out as a small underwear project two years ago is turning into a real collection—without breaking a sweat.
11 September 2004