Joseph Altuzarra brings collection to Asian Art Museum.
With Saks Fifth Avenue now rotating its annual benefit fashion show among San Francisco’s gilded arts palaces, it was only a matter of time before the Asian Art Museum received its turn. Said store Vice President and General Manager Robert Arnold-Kraft: “Saks thought it was the perfect fit to have Joseph (Altuzarra) here. He’s a CFDA award-winning creative director of Altuzarra and was born in Paris to a Chinese American mother who grew up in San Francisco.”
For the 300 attendees on Oct. 17, it was a chance to mingle within a stunning setting while enjoying a taste of the season ahead. This year’s event featured Altuzarra’s resort & spring 2017 capsule collection, shown for the first time since Fashion Week. After cocktails with a trunk show by Nini Jewels in the North Court, the crowd moved upstairs to the marble-walled Samsung Hall, where two of the event’s co-chairs, Alexandra Caban and Patrice Wilbur, welcomed guests. Then, show time: Altuzarra’s fluency in David Lynch was evident from the music, which wavered from the floatiness of “Twin Peaks” to the heavy-metal hardness of “Wild at Heart.” Seeing his cheerful cherry prints on wispy dresses and lacy red power suits up close elicited sounds of admiration, but none so much as the final look — a high-slit pale blue organza gown with lemon and pineapple embroidery.
Before the event, co-chair Helina Au spoke of a need for more fashion in San Francisco, specifically at the museum: “The Asian Art Museum is going into a more contemporary art direction, and fashion to me is a form of art that you can live in every day. So having more fashion in a museum is fantastic. Being Asian myself, having an organization that is dedicated to the culture and art of this culture is very meaningful to me.” Fashion-focused exhibitions are planned for the next two years, including one on kimonos.
Co-chair Juliet Bergh said of Altuzarra, “Some of his techniques have an old Japanese and Chinese influence. Every season, his inspiration comes from different areas in his life, and you can see so many things in his collections. For a designer to have that kind of range is amazing.”
At a VIP reception post-show, the designer enthused, “I sort of went on a road trip in my mind. We were in the Hamptons for the summer, and it was so wonderful from a personal point of view, but the flip side is that it was such a weird summer with the (presidential) campaign. I wanted something that felt really happy, light and optimistic. And I had been watching a lot of David Lynch films, and that very crazy energy was something I was really responding to.” As to whether he’d seen anything in San Francisco to inspire him, Altuzarra said he’d been on a minifood tour with a morning visit to the new Tartine Manufactory.
(And yes, they still had their much-coveted bread.)