So it wasn't at Lincoln Center.
It was still about performing art. And, of course, fashion.
Joel Yapching's Spring 2012 menswear collection, BOOK Homme, opened with Alison Cheeseman and Nicholas Tamagna, above, modeling and emoting passionate operatic phrasing Wednesday in Chelsea.
The countertenor (he) and mezzo soprano (she) were part of the Pocket Opera of New York's PONYmobile, the company's new nomadic lab experiment that, lucky for Fashion Week, found its way to the intersection of art and design, giving jaded fashion show-goers a subtle break with a portion of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria.
Designer Yapching, who interned with Giorgio Armani Le Collezioni here in NYC a decade ago, has been compared to Dries Van Noten and Yohji Yamamoto. With his half-stance asymmetrical styling on jackets, raw selvedges, old world hand-stitching techniques and French seams, plus a dark and ivory neutral palette, one can see why. Fisherman's netting for tanks, cowl neck draping, capris, striped trousers and flowy fishtail jackets that draped to the floor in the back or side were inspired by Greek fisherman, according to Yapching, taking his bow below.
