Ready-to-Wear 2016

The Sophie Theallet show kicked off with a bang. A literal one: Audience members snapped to attention as a drummer pounded out a loud beat from the far reaches of Theallet's outdoor show space. The attention was called for, as this latest collection from the designer was one for which you wanted to be wide awake.

This was a joyful fashion show. The music, supplied by a troupe of Senegalese drummers, was thoroughly happy-making, and so were the clothes, the best that Theallet has ever produced. Africa was the key reference here, unabashedly so. It was a "dream of Africa," as Theallet put it, that she extrapolated via textures of raffia and burlap, cape silhouettes, and extraordinary, couture-quality lace that read a bit like snakeskin. There were also beautiful smudged black-and-white prints that riffed on tribal body paint, and halter necklines redolent of traditional African chokers. Theallet was appropriating, but with such a fluency and generosity of spirit, and with such good instincts about how to integrate her African inspiration into prototypically Western silhouettes, that the appropriation felt earned. The Theallet woman - and she was a woman, not a girl - hadn't just gone to Africa and returned with some fresh ideas about aesthetics. She'd come back with a whole new point of view.

There were too many standout looks here to list them all. Theallet made magic with her lace, using it with subtlety as a cobwebby layer of black on top of a caramel-colored cape, and to much more graphic effect in gridded dresses and skirts. She also wowed the crowd with two sexy striped lace jumpsuits that were shown on genuinely full-figured girls. (This Theallet show was a model for diverse casting in general, by the way.)

Theallet updated her signature hourglass silhouette with panache, using broad raffia belts to set off her full shorts and mid-calf skirts. The halter-neck dresses and gowns featuring tiers of feathers and raffia strips belong on a red carpet, posthaste. And the daywear spanned from breezily feminine, with ruffled silk dresses in a small smudged dot print, to burlap linen tailoring that was almost utilitarian, it was so matter-of-fact.

Theallet finally found her niche as a tailor with this collection - these looks were nearly as confident as the diaphanous sheer numbers that found her revisiting the brand vocabulary that's been native to her from the start. It was fitting that this show concluded with a burst of drumming and dancing: Theallet was due a celebration.