Suzy Menkes at New York fashion week: day one

Menkes reports from Suno, Lacoste and Gabriela Hearst.

Suno: clothes with a soul

Lush green flowers on a strict coat or pink blooms against black floral swirls… The Suno collection suggested a struggle for optimism with dark undertones. And so it was.

The show notes by Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty revealed a complex inspiration, reflecting on the madness in Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre and the subsequent link to the “mad woman in the attic” in the Wide Sargasso Sea.

But this strong show was really a meld of Max’s African roots and a desire to give work to garment industry workers in Kenya, as well as India and Peru. The result was a lively show of straight silhouettes with a Jamaican twist of bright stripes, vivid flat flowers and a subtle sense of unravelling.

Lacoste: René did it first

MC Solaar – France’s best-known rapper – pounded out the sound while Lacoste sent out an insolent message on a T-shirt: “René did it first!”

Beating America at its own sportswear game was the story of Lacoste’s Autumn/Winter 2015 season. And designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista is right: back in the 1920s René Lacoste and his crocodile logo marked the beginning of sporty clothes incorporated into fashion.

The designer took his theme of “winter tennis” and ran with it. For both sexes he played with the tracksuit but also offered cute, girly, pleated tennis skirts. He also followed a strong theme of opening up seams and silhouettes: coat sleeves slit open to release the arms, and some panels of mesh to reflect the tennis net. Plays on checks or stripes set at an angle were graphic and stylish for both sexes.

Some balls landed out of court, but the general effect was younger and sharper. For while René may have done it all back in the “Anyone for tennis?” era, the brand now has to play the fashion game to 21st-century rules.

Gabriela Hearst: carved in wood

“I am from Uruguay – I love wood,” explained Gabriela Hearst, speaking in the New York townhouse where chunks of carved wood and similar textures on boots caught the spirit of the first collection in her name: clothes designed – and made in Italy – to last.

A tweed coat with a detachable fur lining, a sweater threaded with colourful silk ribbons, and a theme of hardware in the form of metal dog clips made an elegant collection with a twist. The prices are not as formidable as The Row or Hermès, but Gabriela works in a similar groove.

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