Cynthia Cheng Mintz

If it takes confidence for a woman to wear Monique Lhuillier’s Elmoesque dress, then it takes even more to wear just about anything from Betsey Johnson’s Fall/Winter 2011 collection.  As usual, the “wild child” of New York fashion shows a collection of pieces that are a little on the alternative side, yet could work well when paired with pieces that are more mainstream. 

The Fall/Winter collection was, of course, very unusual compared to much that we’ve seen so far this week.  Under the theme of “He Loves Me, He Loves Me not” the collection was filled with tartans, pinks, greens and purples as well as animal print and ranging from leggings to short, yet full skirts.  Models either wore straight wigs with bangs, not dissimilar to Uma Thurman’s character from the movie Pulp Fiction (“He Loves Me Not” portion, which was much darker) or wore fun blonde Betsey Johnson-esqu wigs (“He Loves Me” portion).  What was very interesting about this part of the show were the models.  They were mostly not of “traditional model size” and were also staff of Betsey Johnson.  There were two guys (one wore the blonde wig, one did not) and also a woman who was visibly pregnant.  These models did not come out one by one, but rather in a line.  When they reached the end of the runway, they would throw a kiss at the audience. And of course, it isn’t a Betsey Johnson show without her appearance and signature cartwheel!  You can watch all 17 minutes and 20 seconds of the show here.