For Spring 2013, Derek Lam offered a collection that he’d described as “clean” and it terms of line and unfussiness of styling it certainly was that.

The colors however were the furthest thing from “clean” and were mostly a sad early 1970’s inspired palette of mossy greens, black, mustard yellow (again? there was already so much of this everywhere last season) and oxblood. That wonderful bright blue was a welcome exception.

The silhouettes were nice enough with plenty of separates, reworkings of that Spring staple, the trench coat, and a few special dresses.

A few observations if I may:

• The green pieced sections on the look above absolutely do not match the green on the embossed leather shoes. The shoes are at least 15% more yellow and I hate this and it throws me off. Hoping this is the photography and irl it’s better.
• So, midriffs and bralette tops happening again next Spring. Fine, I’ll keep doing my sit ups.
• That fitted dress in the blue to yellow print is fucking on point.
• The red/pink confetti dress reminds me of those cellophane disasters MJ did last Spring and also some Prada from Fall Winter two seasons ago, but this version is actually the best of all!

That’s it. Enjoy, and for more photos….. (Images via Vogue.com) -RS