Nicole Miller Tries Too Hard To Be Hip

Image by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Mary Kay

By Michelle Honig February 12, 2018

Designer: Nicole Miller

Image by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Mary Kay

Date: Friday, February 9, 2018
Location: West Village-based Industria
Jewish? We’re not sure, but if we had to guess, it would be a yes. Either way, CEO Bud Konheim is definitely Jewish (although some of the stuff he says makes us wish he wasn’t).

Nicole Miller, like Tory Burch, imagines her customer to be a jetsetter, a woman of the world. But perhaps she is feeling the pressure to imbue her clothes with a bit of downtown chic. And so we get a collection filled with fleece-lined leather jackets, the requisite open coat lined in a contrast color revealing a mini skirt with a slit up to there, a leather playsuit bedecked in New York-inspired patches, and sweatshirt dresses (in a Nicole Miller-esque floral print, of course). Most appalling, however, was the obvious nod to Juicy Couture: There were velour pants with patches and a particularly hideous floral sequin sweatpants.

But there were high notes too. The strongest pieces were the ones that embraced Nicole Miller’s feminine essence, specifically the florals. The blue-toned watercolor floral knee-high boots really stood out as a statement piece, and was expertly paired with a asymmetrical floral dresses in contrasting colors. If Miller would have stuck to a collection of fun, feminine frocks, this could have been a homerun for the brand.

Michelle Honig is the style writer at the Forward. Contact her at honig@forward.com. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.

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