“If you know me, you know that I’m obsessed with a thing that’s just for a thing,” said Daniella Kallmeyer. That “thing” this season was a book about traditional Japanese packaging titled How to Wrap Five Eggs. The cover art, which features eggs gently crocheted together, became a bit of an obsession for its structural discipline and textural intrigue. It captures when an obsession becomes a meditative practice, and in the Kallmeyer world, that inevitably becomes a collection. (Sharp eyes hopefully caught the bright flash of eggs nestled in their crochet carrier swinging against a trench-length blouson-bottomed coat.)
Through silhouette and texture, everything operated in balance, and that is why no look was too pretentious. Case in point: two knit sets, one in a terracotta and one in black, represented this season’s iteration of the “core” Port Shirt. Both the slimness and the mock-neck collar allowed a formality where a casual sweatsuit style co-ord generally might not. It’s Kallmeyer’s dream that you lean into that balance, wearing it either to the theater or picking up your kids. An opera cape became a surprising daytime staple with a pair of pedal pushers and a fringed bandana. The same can be said for an intricately beaded ivory jacket, inspired by the works of South American textile designer Olga de Amaral—the technique really sang when the cropped style was matched with a pair of lightwashed jeans.
Texture truly came out to play in two of Kallmeyer’s newest textile developments. The first was a swatch of jacquard plaid, which Kallmeyer interpreted into a raised beading that provides what she calls an “eyelash.” Sheer squares punctuated the plaid, bringing levity to the weight of the fabric hanging underneath the second piece of newness: a packing confetti fringe sweater. The designer originally planned on trimming down said fringe, found across numerous knits, asymmetrically layered and otherwise; however, she was inspired by the buoyant life that the slight tangling gives. Even with such discipline, spontaneity can still produce the greatest joys.
Part of what makes Kallmeyer appealing is the woman that her clothes speak to—namely, people like director Celine Song in the audience. Such are the working women of our time who flock towards a beautifully relaxed suited look (bonus points for the accessory of the season: the cummerbund). Chances are, if you don a Kallmeyer piece, someone is going to ask you where you got it.
