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Arts
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 — 5

Stunning, jarring, intriguing, 

scary — all apt descriptors for 
hullaballoo that has been the lat-
est iteration of New York Fashion 
Week. To provide some nuanced 
imagery about the past week, your 
Daily Style writers have compiled 
a few of their favorite collections 
that graced this season’s runway.

Kithland
Kith, for the most part, is a stark 

contrast from Fashion Week’s tra-
ditional mainstays. Largely for 
that very reason, their New York 
debut was met with a flurry of 
surprise and intrigue. In embrac-
ing and celebrating the label’s 
newfound stage (and audiences), 
founder Ronnie Fieg took the 
opportunity to craft an experi-
ence, stylized “KITHLAND,” that 
deviated far from the conventions 
of a typical runway show, stream-
ing his new digs to the masses 
online and allowing fans of his 
to relive the experience through 
virtual reality at one of his many 
flagship Manhattan stores. 

With an audience that boasted 

the likes of Iman Shumpert and Ja 
Rule, Fieg had much of the mod-
ern hype machine intently watch-
ing for what Fieg had in store. He 
split his show into three different 
offerings, “City,” “Mountain” and 
“Beach” (for his upcoming Miami 
flagship store), respectively, with 
the show conveying much of 
Fieg and Kith’s bread and but-
ter, showcasing a cohesive mix of 
flashy sneakers and ’90s throw-
back couture. 

Kith 
has 
been 
experienc-

ing a gradual rise in clout and 
popularity 
among 
Manhattan 

and streetwear’s more cultured 
patrons, but in Kithland, Fieg 
cemented his label’s newfound 
status as fashion’s “nouvelle élite,” 
adding patrons of high fashion to 
his ever-growing list of fans. 

— Anay Katyal

Tommy Hilfiger
Tommy Hilfiger was the talk 

of day three of New York Fashion 
Week as he debuted the brand’s 
first ever “see-now-buy-now” col-
lection, called #TOMMYNOW. 
The designer, well known for 
going above and beyond with 
runway design, featured a car-
nival theme to set the stage for 
Hilfiger’s 
collaboration 
with 

supermodel Gigi Hadid. The 
21-year-old Vogue regular sport-
ed a slew of looks that embodied 
the usual themes of Hilfiger’s 
design: 
all-American, 
nautical 

and classic.

Combining 
Hadid’s 
image 

with the brand allowed Hilfiger 
to appeal to a younger market. 
Hadid, a Victoria’s Secret Angel, 
gives the classic brand a youthful 
twist, especially since the Hilfiger 
brand has existed since 1985, and 
was in serious need of a revamp. 
Through the Fall 2016 collection, 
Hilfiger and Hadid provided sev-
eral new personalities — for start-
ers, the collection can be bought 
in stores right now and not in six 
months, as is usual with Fashion 
Week collections. Additionally, 
the clothes took Hilfiger’s classic 
look and made it attractive, com-

fortable and stylish. 

— Isobel Futter

Jason Wu
“Florals — for spring? Ground-

breaking.”

Jason Wu’s spring 2017 collec-

tion is heavy on florals, but still 
breaks boundaries.

Wu’s spring collection is full of 

dichotomies, yet feels effortless 
and fluid. The collection begins 
with heavy navys paired with iri-
descent blues and shifts towards 
nudes and neons. Wu uses dark 
colors traditionally more suited 
for fall with lightweight fabrics — 
though this isn’t a new tactic for 
the designer, who relied heavily 
on stiff, dark shades in his spring 
2016 collection.

Perhaps the pops of color and 

nudes seen near the end of his 
show were a concession to the 
more traditional spring fare. His 
collection was focused on both 
the creation of flow through the 
use of draping and pairing with 
other pieces which use rigid neon 
lines to create structure. But 
despite the collection’s variety, it 
still feels cohesive, and new: flo-
rals are fresh. 

— Emma Kinery

Vera Wang
Vera Wang showcased a mono-

chromatic style at Fashion Week 
this year. The designer, who’s 
been moving towards collections 
solely in black and white in the 
past few years, definitely stuck to 
that theme.

The looks were not intricate — 

simple skirts, shorts and cropped 
tops, paired with oversize jackets 
and blazers — but were chic and 
fitting to the brand’s minimalist 

theme. The designer also opted 
for a natural hair and makeup 
for the models, and all the mod-
els sported the same black socks 
and black boots. Overall, the 
designer chose for her entire 
show, collection and appeal all to 
adhere to “less is always more.” 
In doing so, spectators can focus 
on the clothes, what they bring 
to the wearer’s body and how 
the simplistic designs differ ever 
so slightly from one another. 
No surprises from Wang, as the 
brand played to its strengths and 
provided Fashion Week with an 
artistically modest, yet elegant 
and nuanced, collection. 

— Isobel Futter

Carolina Herrera
The show began with perhaps 

the strongest look in the collec-
tion: a structured denim dress 
a la Britney Spears at the 2001 
VMAs, except it was channeling 
elegance rather than gaudiness. 
That being said, not all of the 
pieces in the collection strode the 
same path. Herrera’s collection 
is mainly black and white, with 
some striped pieces feeling more 
circus than chic.

The focus was on making the 

everyday picnic style feel evening 
and in that it succeeded, even if on 
the individual level it felt tired: at 
times the ties on several sleeves 
of the looks were a bit much. She 
made fabrics and patterns from 
the everyday — white blousey 
cotton, denim, gingham — into 
the spectacular. Herrera’s use of 
structure compensates for the 
areas which feel less refined and 
makes pieces like this black coat-
dress shine. 

— Emma Kinery 

KITH NYC

How did Derek Jeter get up there?

TV REVIEW

DAILY STYLE WRITERS

All you need to know from the stylish 
craziness of NY Fashion Week SS17

Daily Style Writers recap the biggest showcases of the week

Within the first 20 minutes 

or so of “Snowden,” Nicolas 
Cage 
(“National 
Treasure”), 

playing a teacher 
at a CIA train-
ing 
facility, 

engages Edward 
Snowden (Joseph 
Gordon-Levitt, 
“Inception”) 
in a conversa-
tion about vice. 
The 
back-and-

forth goes a bit 
something like this: Cage asks 
Gordon-Levitt what his vice is. 
Gordon-Levitt says he doesn’t 
drink or do drugs. Cage retorts 
that he must have a vice. Gor-
don-Levitt replies, “Comput-
ers, I guess.” Cage says, “Well, 
this sure is a whorehouse of 
computers…”

From there on, it’s just more 

of the same. A not-so-small 
percentage of time, the dia-
logue is unbearable. Quips like 
these are consistent through-
out film. They left me and 
those around me in the theater 
laughing at the sheer absur-
dity of the things being said in 
supposedly serious, emotional 
scenes. Another highlight in 
absolute trash dialogue occurs 
after Snowden makes it onto 
the news after talking with 

The Guardian. We see Cage’s 
character sitting in a La-Z-Boy, 
smoking a cigarette in front of 
his television set in a ’70s-style 
home. He exclaims from his 
recliner, “He did it!” and the 

scene cuts away.

But if bad dia-

logue was the only 
problem the movie 
had, it could have 
still been a decent 
production. 
Unfortunately, the 
rest of the movie 
follows suit — at 
least stylistically, 

the quality doesn’t improve. At 
one point, Snowden has a sei-
zure and Gordon-Levitt falls to 
the ground to do his best reen-
actment of this medical emer-
gency. What makes it awful is 
the way director Oliver Stone 
(“Platoon”) chooses to portray 
the experience of a seizure. 
Snowden is cooking up some 
spaghetti, and his glasses start 
to fog from the steam. The cam-
era and his body begin to wob-
ble back and forth. The screen 
becomes stained with the same 
fog that was on his glasses. 
Randomly, the movie switches 
to a point-of-view shot as Gor-
don-Levitt falls to the ground, 
and in blurred vision, his girl-
friend rushes over. The whole 
scene turns a serious medical 
scenario into a hokey plot-point 

action scene.

The movie mostly revolves 

around Snowden finding out 
new and creepier information 
about what the NSA is doing. 
He finds something out. He is 
disturbed by it. He doesn’t do 
anything about it. This cycle 
continues until the end, when 
Snowden 
(surprise!) 
finally 

does something about it. The 
story jumps back and forth in 
time between the interview 
with The Guardian in his hotel 
room in Hong Kong and the 
events that have taken place in 
the last few years. Much of the 
movie is told with one of the 
interviewers asking Snowden 
a question and him narrating 
the scene that takes place on 
screen. The storytelling feels 
cheap, like a shortcut to certain 
events in Edward Snowden’s 
life.

The movie ends with an 

interview in an auditorium 
where Snowden appears on 
a computer monitor from his 
current residence in Russia. At 
the very end of the interview, 
the movie cuts back to Edward 
Snowden — the real Edward 
Snowden, not Joseph Gordon-
Levitt. Dramatically, this cut 
to the real person adds nothing. 
It feels like a trick, like Stone is 
saying “Hey! Look! This movie 
is based on a real person.” Yes, 
we know.

OPEN ROAD FILMS

(500) Days of Russian Winter

JOE WAGNER
Daily Arts Writer

Not even Nicolas Cage can steal a good movie out of this mess

D-

“Snowden”

Open Road Films

Rave & Quality 16

Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’ 
a weak, laughable biopic

FILM REVIEW

Frank Zappa once said in an 

interview, “I don’t think any-
body has ever seen the real Frank 
Zappa, 
because 

being interviewed 
is one of the most 
abnormal 
things 

that you can do 
to 
somebody.” 

Zappa’s words are 
a warning label, 
a way to tell the 
audience 
that 

the person in the 
documentary 
is 

not the person it’s portraying. 
For the next 90 minutes, audi-
ences see interviews in which 
this abnormality is explored, 
diving into the idiosyncrasies 
of Zappa. Can anything he says 
be taken seriously, or is every-
thing just another act? Regard-
less of his warning, “Eat That 
Question: Frank Zappa in His 
Own Words” is the closest thing 
fans will get to knowing the real 
musical mastermind.

Thorsten Schütte (“Namib-

ia Generation X”), a director 
known for TV documentaries, 
retells Zappa’s diverse career 
from his bicycle orchestra on 
“The Steve Allen Show” to 
his battle with cancer. Rather 
than rely on narration, Schüt-
te exclusively uses footage of 
interviews and live perfor-
mances. Zappa is such a dis-
tinct personality that he is the 
only qualified source to recount 
his work. Any other efforts to 

illustrate his career are futile. 
Watching a random music his-
torian try to talk about him 
would feel phony, something 
Zappa would find hilarious.

Zappa was no stranger to 

slander 
in 
the 

press, 
and 
the 

media 
was 
just 

another 
instru-

ment for Zappa 
to 
manipulate. 

“Eat That Ques-
tion” 
addresses 

false claims, like 
the 
idea 
that 

Zappa frequently 
used 
psyche-

delic drugs, with vengeance. 
His disapproval toward drugs 
may not shock devoted fans, 
but those influenced by these 
media reports will be surprised 
to hear Zappa never took LSD 
and disliked marijuana, because 
his workaholic tendencies and 
endless discography would have 
been dampened. If there needed 
to be an anti-drug role model in 
the 20th Century, it should have 
been Zappa.

The documentary juxtaposes 

the interviews and Zappa’s zany 
performances to discover the 
motives behind his acts. Every 
lyric and every charade had a 
purpose, and there was never 
fluff in any of his material. The 
documentary, 
unfortunately, 

fails to live up to such high stan-
dards at all moments. Though 
predominantly 
engaging, 
it 

overstays its welcome when 
introducing his brief tenure as a 
pseudo-ambassador for Czecho-

slovakia. Although this displays 
Zappa’s eclectic life, it feels like 
a digression from what impact-
ed fans the most: his music. 

“Eat That Question” does not 

attempt to summarize Zappa’s 
entire life; basic facts like his 
date of birth or miscellaneous 
trivia can be found easily and 
don’t require a documentary. 
Rather, it uses Zappa’s own 
words to give the viewer insight 
into the meaning behind his off-
beat melodies and mockery.

Zappa satirized everything 

from the hippie subculture to 
new wave music; every trend 
was prone to his wrath. If he 
found something depressing or 
uninspiring, he didn’t shy away 
from saying it. For him, the 
obsequious nature of Ameri-
cans was despicable. “Eat That 
Question” features an extended 
look at “Bobby Brown,” a song 
that scrutinizes the American 
Dream. “Bobby Brown” shows 
Zappa’s eccentricity and skepti-
cal outlook most efficiently, and 
the retelling of this song feels 
funnier than ever.

In an age when fitting in is 

optimal and individuality is 
thrown out thanks to social 
media, everyone can learn a 
lot from Zappa. He proved that 
distinguishing oneself from the 
crowd is what makes us whole. 
The documentary highlights his 
authenticity and inspires view-
ers to not live blindly. Although 
it lags at times, “Eat That Ques-
tion” 
successfully 
resurrects 

Zappa’s legacy for a new genera-
tion of music lovers.

WILL STEWART

For the Daily

Frank Zappa documentary shows 
viewers the legend in his own words

“Eat That Question” will please both novices and hardcore fans.

B+

“Eat That Question: 
Frank Zappa in His 

Own Words”

Sony Pictures 

Classics

FILM REVIEW
FASHION ROUND-UP

