Exteberria Spring 2015

Leather/animal skins with fur for spring? Though not an untried fabric option for spring—for several seasons we have seen soft leather in shorts, tops and as embellishment for pre-spring garments—still, a complete collection of leather garments is an unusual digression from all the diaphanous fabrics and typical cotton fabrications one would expect for spring/summer collections. However, if the brand is Spain-based Exteberria, perhaps, leather as a spring fabric is not such an odd choice.

For spring 2014, creative director Roberto Lopez Exteberria used leather as a main fabric stable of his collection. And his affinity for leather as a spring fabric choice carries heavily over to his spring 2015 collection.

Known primarily as a menswear designer, Roberto Exteberria has branched over into women’s wear, even including a few women’s wear looks in his appearance at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW). That said; Exteberria strength is his menswear looks, expanding menswear silhouettes to embrace silhouettes that are traditionally a part of the women’s wear assemblage of silhouettes.

Realizing that the male consumer—particularly the American male shopper— is slow to expand his style palette to include new silhouette, in this collection Roberto Exteberria has kept his silhouettes simple as to alienate the male consumer. Still, a lot can be said for Exteberria’s risk-taking; however, will this risk pay off in retail sales.

What can be said about this MBFW outing is that Exteberria provided a much-needed creative lift to what many fashion pundits see as a rather bland spring 2015 season. Standouts in this spring 2015 collection is the opening look of the black leather-pleated man skirt, beige leather vest with black shorts with beige leather inserts, color-blocked leather top with blue man skirt, and short-sleeved tan leather trench with animal skin shorts.

—William S. Gooch

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