Michael Bastian

Michael Bastian

Michael Bastian's Spring 2011 show was an exuberant celebration of strength and athleticism, and further proof of the evident joy this designer takes in his work. Inspired by Navy SEALs and the crew of Jacques Cousteau's Calypso, Bastian injected an extreme body-consciousness into his take on classic American sportswear. Emphasis on the sports: Upping the ante on his signature shorts, Bastian made the bathing suit a building block of his new summer wardrobe, pairing it with everything from a rugby shirt to alpaca and cashmere knits. (Seersucker shorts for evening were aslightly more conventional alternative.)

Bastian also put a twist on the military theme, with a camouflage pattern created from leopard spot. He cut a shirt and tie from this to accessorize a midnight silk/mohair tux, underscoring the finely honed appetite for the outré in his work. This collection, for instance, managed to tip its leopard-camo cap to both David de Rothschild and François Sagat as contemporary male archetypes. Predictable? Hardly—and that is the secret of Bastian's success.

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Gant by Michael Bastian

Gant by Michael Bastian

Michael Bastian's menswear inspiration this season was the husbands of Marilyn Monroe—Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, specifically—and that led to a campaign and film (you can watch it here). That in turn raised the question of what their "Marilyn" was going to wear. What started as a few pieces for this supporting role grew into an entire line, and today Bastian debuted his first collection for women alongside the menswear he designs for Gant.

The man has a deep sense of theater. He showcased the clothes this time around in posed tableaux along fifties-bombshell/slugger lines. Clustered groups of men and women lounged about in movie theater seats and leaning up on stretches of fence, dressed in staples of midcentury prep: chic little trenches, seersucker and madras, navy lace blouses, and—playing to Bastian's fetish for athletics—gym shorts and locker room sweats. (Here and there were atmospheric props: a pile of vintage typewriters, some radio mics, a bunch of inner tubes.) For Fall, tailoring was limited mainly to separates, but Bastian's now making affordable suits, too, in cropped piqué for the ladies, classic khaki for the gents. (He's not, by the way, making them alone. His longtime publicist, Eugenia Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui, is assisting on the womenswear designs.)

The danger of going the dramatic route is that productions are costumed, not clothed. But that wasn't a problem here: The looks will break down nicely into affordable, individual items with barely a whisper of Marilyn or Joltin' Joe. For proof, Bastian offered Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui herself, whom he calls one of the chicest women in New York. She wore a pretty blouse in broderie anglaise, a Spring piece that was also on display not 20 feet away. She paired hers with tiny denim cutoffs and a high suede combat boot that was very 2010.

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