New York Fashion Week: Greg Lauren ups the glamour

We’ve been following the fashion side of Greg Lauren’s career for a few years now, and as much as we’ve always admired his knack for turning vintage army tent canvas and woolen blankets into seriously stylish garments, the last couple of seasons have left us longing for something more substantial than riffs on the upcycled statement jacket.

With his fall and winter 2015 collection, presented Wednesday on the penultimate day of New York Fashion Week, Lauren did that in spades - not only ratcheting his men’s and women’s line up several notches in the dressiness department, but managing to send out a couple of looks that wouldn’t be out of place at a movie premiere.

The women’s offerings included furry vests and robe coats, sheer black tops, curve-hugging henleys, T-shirts and pinstriped trousers, silk-like tops with black crystal detailing and a tailored jacket with thick, fuzzy lapels. The most elegant women’s look of the evening paired a flowing black, floor-length skirt with a sleeveless turtleneck halter top that appeared to be little more than coarsely spun yarn criss-crossing the model’s torso. On the men’s side, dressier options included three-piece suits that paired leather with pinstripe suiting and herringbone tweeds.

There was still plenty in the collection for the nomad-of-the-moment, but even the coats constructed from crumpled canvas and patchworked blankets and paired with fur-trimmed hoods had a certain freshness and brightness to them; the blankets emblazoned with wide light-blue stripes, the slouchy mixed-fabrication sweatpants with diamond quilting or motocross-like detailing.

And, as it turns out, we weren’t the only one in the house who thought the collection had glam-cam potential. Brooke Shields, who was seated in the front row (she knows Lauren’s wife, Elizabeth Berkley, but told us she’d actually bought her first jacket by the label years ago without realizing the connection), picked out her favorite look without hesitation.

“That gown with the red [yarn bodice]? I’d wear that on the red carpet in a heartbeat!” she said.

For fashion coverage of every stripe – from the runway to the red carpet – follow me at @ARTschorn.