The Autumn/Winter 2009 collection of Monika Tywanek and Ingrid Verner's cult label TV has positioned Melbourne, Australia's darling design duo for an impending, sure-to-be explosive collective downtown NYC embrace. With its Alexander Wang-esque silhouettes and palate, TV's newest collection offers an unapologetic, newfangled harkening back to the most innovative fashion era, the 1980s. As Anne Slowey so eloquently put it, this was an epoch less-than-coincidentally concurrant with the "black market fallout of the greed decade," so it comes as little surprise that TV's eighties allusions feel so refreshingly relevant in our current economic stagflation. While its essential showstopping staples of "Like a Virgin" lace leggings, studded Prorsom-like coin belts and perfectly tailored safari jumpsuits à la Lauren Hutton are certainly must-haves of the season, the unpretentious collection hits easy-breezy cozy homestyle notes (highlighted by hand-knitted camel scoop neck sweaters and lush ecru turtlenecks) in chorus with an avant-garde club kid urbanity (crowning moments include slashed acid-washed mum jeans and tamer-than-Prada turbans that could still win over the likes of Boy George). One of the most telling signs of TV's looming stateside success is the unmitigated evolution from collection to collection: Ingrid and Monika are known to take a cue from Karl by withholding a wistful eye on prior seasons by designing each collection distinctively. Says Ingrid, "[we] like keeping ourselves interested... so we try not to get stuck on one thing and repeat it every season." The shining interplay between Ingrid's design prowess and Monika's noteworthy textile handiwork has steadily garnered frequent features in the likes of Russh, Oyster and Vice magazines. Although currently only available on this side of the pond at Henri Bendel in Midtown and American Rag in Los Angeles, we fancy the bold graphic aesthetic of TV's signature intelligent-cum-edgy urban wares as perfectly fit for an OAK stocklist. Just saying...
