For Spring/Summer Kiminori Morishita’s inspiration is a very clean, organic and very stylized collection. The opening section is a series of jacket and coat looks. The pants have straight leg and color palette is very simple with blacks and grays with a few earthy tone pieces or looks. The jackets are very tailored very simply but Morishita focused on texture in the materials and a soft palette that is very eye catching. One of the standout looks in this section is a very light and soft brown leather coat worn with a cotton/silk blend dress pants and simple white jersey shirt. The second section keeps to the opening color palette but adding more white and few shimmer pieces like the silk blend steel blue pants. One of the standout looks is a metallic gray silk blend dress pant worn with a black leather biker’s jacket. The look is topped off with a black and white stripe dress shirt with a high Edwardian collar.

For the third section Morishita get a little more dressed up with a series of suit looks in organic and textured fabrics with a slight sheen. The color theme of the collection is very contrasted from section to section with soft earthy tones to strict dark tones of black and gray or all white. Besides the shimmer Morishita kept the color very mild like the pale robins egg blue he used on a few piece or the garnet red use on a few turtleneck pieces. For the closing section he mixes it up with a series of day and evening looks meshed together. The emphasis is on a slightly sheer dress shirt and a lot of silk dress shirts. The closing evening looks are similar to the evening looks earlier in the collection. One of the key pieces in this section is a cropped safari jacket done in tan brushed cotton twill fabric that feels like velvet. The jacket is tailored with a box silhouette.

The must have piece from the collection is the thigh length robins egg cotton twill overcoat. The must have look is the white cotton twill driving jacket with a hemp cord weave design around the bottom of the jacket. One of missed themes in the collection are the satin ballet shoes the models were wearing. But of the big missing themes in the collection is color, color, color! The collection was too drab at moments. While I was excited to see Morishita did not fall into the all black palette seen in several collection this season. The dabs of white and off white were not enough. Gray is not white; it really does fall toward a black palette now that I think about it. No matter how pale you make the gray it’s still gray! The strongest statement from Morishita is the sexiness he gives the organic fabrics and how easy it is to give a simple fabric new life in tailoring the pieces.

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Utility is the key concept for Navarra this Spring/Summer. He focuses on a utility function for each piece and look, even incorporating adventurous accessories. The open section is simple construction and design, nothing too technical to the looks but the little add-ons and colors are should focus in this collection. One of the key pieces in the opening section is the bright tangerine and black knit cardigan. The light knit cashmere blend cardigan has a color-blocked design in three colors, tangerine, black and pale sea foam green. The look is finished with a matching pale sea foam green cotton jersey shirt. The second section gets a little more flowey with a lot of light fabrics and a few extra volume pieces. Navarro seems to be a little lost in this section. The baggy dress pant has an odd shape with the hips and upper thigh over draped in a baggy silhouette.

For the third section Navarra switches motif with an emphasis on a little western and then giving each a strong statement color. The colors are contrasted with basic black and brown pieces. One of the standout pieces is a pale canary yellow Lyrex jacket with a black cotton twill used on torso, the colors are contrasted with a indigo Lyrex to contrast the yellow and orange cotton twill to the black. The closing section is a lot of black and white. I loved the sheer net tops worn over long sleeve shirts. One of the standout looks in this section is white long sleeve sheer net top worn over a black long sleeve jersey top.

The must have pieces of the collection are two contrast pieces for the season. First is short piece, a orange cotton twill shorts with a white lace appliqué covering the entire leg of the short. The other must have piece is more of Fall/Winter piece, a pale brown ribbed knit cardigan with a wide draped one piece collar and lapel. The ribbed weave design is horizontal on the front of the of the cardigan and vertical on the torso and sleeve. One of the strong points to this collection is that Navarra really moves away from the clean functionality expected in Milan and focuses on the athletic physique in this collection. A superb collection chipped full of great pieces. Bravo Monsieur Navarra!

View complete collection at Wireimage

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