Looking for new names on the NY fashion schedule this season is, sadly, a bit like digging for buried treasure. Erro designer Anna Larson made her debut at a dark and moody theatre space on Wooster Street this week, and the collection was that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we honestly thought we wouldn't find. Black isn't usually a color to get psyched about—especially not for the spring—but there's something about the Swedish designer's gently faded shades of noir and clever use of texture that made for new and interesting pieces. As Larson tells it, her obsession with black started at age five, and even back then she would only let her mom pick the washed-out darks from the laundry pile. A quick post-show google search for the word Erro brings up a bunch of things—a river in Northern Italy, a town in Spain—but the most fitting match was a lunar crater on the east side of the Moon, since there were fabric treatments in the mix that looked like the blackened soil of some weird shadowy planet.
Funnily enough, the starting point for the collection was sunlight and the idea of sun-bleaching. Take a closer look and you'll notice the strapping and lightened panels on dresses and pants actually function like windowpanes, allowing for different degrees of black, and some of the clothes were even streaked with a faded navy blue grind. Throw in the gauzy white tunics and tank tops, and this softer, sun-lightened take on black might just be the most stylish way to toughen up next summer.
