Alessia Prekop Fall/Winter 2013

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Alessia Prekop is all about dichotomies. Raised in Italy but schooled in London, her Fall/Winter ’13 collection seeks to combine Italian elegance and construction with what she called “a London or New York Energy.” She works with a limited palette of black accented with silky pops of color– red, pink, and purple, as in an all-black coat fully lined in hot pink.

Even the simple pieces are complex, “architectural.” Leather and lace paneling abound, as do buttons and fasteners of all sorts. Her pieces are strong-shouldered and sexy, but dangerous, as if one could cut themselves trying to remove them.

“This collection is for a woman- not girl, who is strong and embraces her duality. The black is the darkness inside us, and the pink, happiness, fun.” Her favorite film is Taxi Driver, which she exclaimed without a a pause. Is she disappointed with the gentrified New York of today? “It’s less romantic but you can still smell the energy. Like they say, it never sleeps.”

Construction is critical to Prekop, inspired by her aunt’s vintage Channels and Diors. Detail of assembly is an often underrepresented element in today’s clothing, but is clear in pieces such as a pair of pants that can only be described as “crosshatch-pleated,” in a pattern that moves with the wearer like the interlocking intricacies of a zipper of set of teeth.

The music at her show only underlined Prekop’s motto of Italian tailoring with a London edge– arias, backed with breakbeats.

Alexander Tsebelis is a contributing writer. Email him at bstyle@nyunews.com