Portland Fashion Week #6: Weeeeeee-Waaaaauuugh

Or, an open letter to Night 6 Designers.
By Laura Shinn.

Photos by Amaren Colosi.

Do you know what kind of sound Weeeee-Waaaaaugh is? It's SNL's Debbie Downer sound, and that's the sound that PFW made Wednesday night. With such a great couple of days, why end with a whimper? Why not end with a bang?

The night commenced with Habitude, which wasn't bad, but not outrageously fantastic either. Dear Habitude: We were drawn toward a silk mini with a square neckline and a flowy black beflowered top but other than that, your collection was unremarkable.

Habitude

Poppi Swim has changed its brand name to Popina, which is cute. So was the collection, but I'm sick of cute. Note to Popina: We are so proud of you, we love the swimwear, but let's branch out a little more. More sex and less kitsch. Your fabric? It's cute, but so thin that if we were wearing it (which we couldn't actually, cause we need some boob support) we'd live in fear of a pube popping out. Yikes.

Popina

Garnish: We will forgive you, since you actually just launched in 2005, but it's time for your designs to grow up. We can't wait to see what you'll be doing in the future--the potential is all there and we can tell. Right now, the designs are in their tween years. Show us the money.

garnish

Lucia: Would it have killed you to use a few accessories? Because on their own, those flowered shirt and skirt combos are a little on the blah side. We'd love to see you experiment with embellishment.

Lucia

And finally, Souchi. This designer who operates mostly in cashmere closed the night appropriately. The Souchi collection worked, thank god. We were especially fond of a little brown knit dress. But we have one question: what's with the cashmere bathing suits? They're not for real, are they? What's that? You say they're lingerie? Aha. Makes sense now.