Charles Anastase Fall 2009 RTW

“Over-dyed purple denims”

“Defiled refinery”

“The Ghost of Grunge”

“The spirit of Kurt Cobain”

Enter the world of Charles Anastase Fall 2009 RTW!

It was all very serious…the build up was intense; can’t you tell from the collection notes alone? PR teams deemed Anastase’s latest and greatest as something of a psychological look into the current political occasion…Anastase himself commented that his collection, including a debut of menswear, was to express, “his positive feelings about America’s new president.”

However, after a slew of mixed reviews, it is clear that Anastase did not exactly make his mark as intended. WWD termed the oddly tiered tutus as “sweet”. Hillary Alexander begged for a dumbing down next season, calling out the chaos of his charade as “drowned in the wordy, surreal, psycho-babble”.  Sorry President Obama! Apparently Mr. Anastase was very dismayed that anyone read his work as “sweet-psycho-babble”…

To me, some of the skirts did pop. I liked them. A denim ruffled skirt a la this vintage Fendi suede piece that has been hanging in my closet for years certainly caught my eye. And, since I already believe in Anastase, I was partial to his palette as well. I actually loved the purple against the poppy bright.

I know that Anastase was reaching here (actually I would call it overreaching), yet I did not necessarily mind the quixotic effort. After all, I always appreciate a parade (note: not a charade) that makes me think, don’t you?

Here are some of the denim selections from Charles Anastase’s runway. However, the entire collection is much, much more than denim, and I encourage you view it in its entirety here, courtesy of the folks over at style.com.