Work as a fashion statement

Sensible daytime clothing need not be boring − is this the message behind Sigal Dekel’s 2010 spring-summer collection, titled “Sigal Dekel Goes to Work”?

“Five days, nine hours a day, 45 hours a week. That’s a lot of clothes to wear,” says Dekel, explaining that she decided to expand her daytime offerings due to women’s growing need for a practical, stylish work wardrobe.

However, more than being useful, clever or creative, Dekel’s spring clothes faithfully reflect the changes in women’s clothing habits − the blurring of the distinction between daytime and evening, work and leisure. Moreover, the new collection reflects how the work environment has become a key arena for exciting fashion statements.

The soft knits layered over ruffled shirts with shapely pencil skirts and spike-heeled shoes hint at a late-night office environment − they radiate overt sexiness, and one wonders whether the tight pants, narrow skirts or very short dresses are as comfortable as office wear need be. And to what extent are they suited for long hours in an office or a conference room?

The collection includes all of Dekel’s codes − puffy balloon skirts, ruffled waves of cloth, crisp wrinkled fabric, wraps, overlaps and fabric ties. The models showing them strutted barelegged through Dekel’s Holon office.

One model, in a short and airy lavender chiffon dress, perused documents on the desk in the PR room; a fair model in a wrinkled gray shirt with a soft, full jabot in front and a black pencil skirt, both embellished with silvery zipper-teeth stripes, stood mesmerized by the computer screen in the adjacent room.

The formal, elegant garb of the pair of models who stood in the conference room gazing at a PowerPoint presentation − one in a little black dress and the other in a sharply pleated shirt and a tight pencil skirt − was nothing like what the girl making final alterations in the sewing room wore − a short dress and relaxed top, both of soft grayish fabric.

The models’ hair was pulled back severely, perhaps as a nod to the 1940s, when women started joining the work force while their husbands were away at war. However, the stylized puffs curling softly in front were a wink to the ostentatious 1980s.

While the pretentiousness evoked Melanie Griffith’s character in Mike Nichols’ 1988 romantic comedy “Working Girl,” Dekel’s alternatives were an expression of the changes in working women’s clothing since Tess McGill, the ambitious and frustrated secretary, had to hack her way to the top of the business world in man-tailored skirt suits.

Generally, Dekel offers an extensive, largely unfocused collection each season. This season, it seems it has been translated into an aesthetic statement in the form of cloth dangling carelessly from the garments, either as tassels or as fringes gathered in a large knot. The look is particularly jarring in the cases where Dekel washed the fabric in smoky batik dyes or embellished it with silvery metallic zipper teeth.

Some of the stronger looks were the simplest: a lavender gray mini-dress wrapped diagonally in gray ribbon, pants and a shirt adorned with orderly vertical bands of jagged fabric, and a dress of thin black and gray stripes with a delicate tie-dye wash, creating the right balance between formal and relaxed.

The collection’s title drew inspiration from the Facebook page the designer launched in December, which bears detailed photographs of what Dekel wears every morning when she goes to the studio, along with pearls of wisdom for putting together a timeless wardrobe ‏(“Buy only things that look good on you and will serve you in the future, and not only because it is ‘the thing’ now”‏). Rating-pumping lures, like the raffling of a plane ticket to Paris among the page’s fans, have given Dekel 18,000 followers in the five months since it was launched.

The designer’s new marketing strategy bears similarities to the guided tour she held for the media last week. In both cases, she tried to offer a peek into her personal world and her creative process. In actuality, however, both the Facebook page and the studio visit concealed more than they revealed.

In a sleeveless blouse decorated with long waves of fabric, short shorts and tall, narrow white boots like a contemporary superhero, Dekel spoke about the process of producing the collection. However, her remarks did not reveal any truly intriguing details about her work process, or anything that could teach about her character, apart from technical details about how fabrics are ordered or how the cutting machine works. Thus the visit to the studio, which had promised to be an exciting encounter, turned out to be a guided tour of a clothing factory, devoid of any trace of the smell of sweet perspiration produced in the process of creating fashion.

Prices: pants, NIS 250-650; blouses, NIS 210-530; skirts and dresses, NIS 400-960; evening dresses, NIS 800-2,200; jackets and tops, NIS 330-750. A list of shops can be found at www.sigaldekel.com

	From the Sigal Dekel 2010 spring-summer collection.