Vienna-based Petar Petrov exists outside the “fashion bubble” geographically and ideologically. Trained as a tailor, his focus is on dressing “real” women in well-considered, elegant separates that are logo-free. The industry’s current focus on marketing, said the designer on a call, obstructs people from “looking into good clothes and good quality and good materials and good construction and good proposals….” Not to worry, there’s plenty of all that in Petrov’s fall collection.
In keeping with his season’s trend for the warm fuzzies there is a butter-colored shearling trench and a rust, to-the-floor topper with the rounded shoulders Petrov used throughout the line up. Another of his preoccupations was the higher-waist, which gives the effect of a longer leg. There’s a lot of leather (and a patent-leather cape coat), some of it with a hard-edged Helmut Newton-esque vibe.
Just as strong and inventive are Petrov’s investigations into wovens and knits. “I was thinking also that it’s nice to create clothes that are versatile, that you can combine also in different ways, but they feel real,” the designer said by way of introducing his first look, a Japanese tweed jacket/short coat, pebbly cashmere dress, and the perfect pair of over-the-knee boots, all in warm cocoa shades. What looks like a plaid dress with a skirt tied around the waist is a shirt and skirt with sleeve details that build the gesture into the look as well as keep things light. There’s even a modern take on the trad twinset: a cropped sweater and hoodie, it’s shown with a pencil skirt for a sharp look and also with a skirt suit.
There happen to be a lot of smokings this season, but Petrov’s has special resonance as it relates to place; the designer opined that his sleeveless dress and trouser set “feels like Viennese nights at the opera bar…. We want to keep the tuxedo story always in our collection because the [city] we work from is very well known for these kinds of occasions.” In a global world, these connections to heritage and to the local feel evermore special, apart, and precious.