Esteban Cortazar Needs Experience to Match the Hype
By Karin Nelson
Photos by Gruber-FWD
NEW YORK, Sep 24, 2002/FWD/ --- In the past six months, much attention has been paid
to 18-year-old Colombian-born, Miami-based designer Esteban Cortazar.
Mostly in part to his legion of friends in high places: Madonna, Shakira, Lenny Kravitz and
Todd Oldham, whom Cortazar claims to be his mentor; as well as Bloomingdale’s Fashion
Director Kal Ruttenstein, who displayed the wunderkind’s collection in the department store
windows this summer.
Needless to say, Cortazar’s debut showing for New York Fashion Week Sunday afternoon
was a hotly anticipated affair.
So much so, that Suzy Menkes, the International Herald Tribune’s highly respected fashion
critic, announced she had delayed her trip to Milan specifically to see it.
So when the lights went down before a crowd that included Oldham, Ivana Trump, Nicky Hilton
and Casey Johnson, and the thunderous hoots and hollers akin to a rock concert subsided,
one expected to see extraordinary work.
Instead, it was the makings of a kid – still in high school, and quite struck by South
Beach style.
Inspired by the colors of the sea, the 64-piece lineup consisted of three colors – a rather
vibrant aqua, a no less subtle fluorescent lime, and mint.
Cortazar’s woman is no wallflower. She’s got an unbelievable body, and likes to flaunt it.
She wears mini chiffon skirts with side slits, terry cloth hot pants with a circular cut-out,
flared-sleeve cha-cha tops tied to bare her tummy, and hip-hugging white leather pants that
bell out at the knee.
And this is just to go grocery shopping.
At night she throws on a chiffon bias-cut tiered gown that twists around the neck
(the best look of the collection) and when she’s feeling a bit more “conservative” she pulls
out a silk satin pantsuit with low-rise slacks and the most shrunken of jackets.
There is no question that Cortazar is enamored of the female figure.
He understands it – as best a barely-legal kid can – and knows how to drape clothing
to magnificently accentuate it.
But still, he’s green.
His ideas tend to be limited -- i.e., take a minimal amount of clingy fabric, swath it
around, and tie it, not too tight.
He has a good dose of talent and a highfalutin support team -- which goes a long way to
ensuring success -- but he will benefit by finishing his high school design degree.
Click here for more photos.
|
