For the Derek Lam Pre-Fall 2015 collection, the designer was inspired by Malevich exhibit particularly the way the way artist used circles, squares and quadrilateral lines.

“Malevich and the American Legacy at the Gagosian — I kept thinking about it, and about how this Russian painter’s works from the Fifties shaped American creativity of the Seventies,” Lam said.

The designer embraced that theme through graphic surface decoration via plaids and single-circle details on skirts and tops as well as in constructions, such as sweater knitted as a full circle and the sleeve of a dress made as a 3-D square. The complicated simplicity of those shapes made Lam’s collection classic American sportswear, unfussy and luxe, with a focus on urbane separates in clean but fluid cuts and graphic dimension.