Daywear took over for the Alexis Mabille Pre-Fall 2015 collection. This season, the designer constraining that decorative impulse of decorating and embellishing his pieces.

Riffing on the idea of an arty girl, with a taste for both impressionist florals and constructivist geometry, he worked mainly in a neutral palette of black, gray, and navy, with occasional shots of lurid violet, and emphasized workhorse pieces such as shirtdresses and trim skirts and trousers. This collection didn’t amount to a realistic wardrobe, exactly—the skirts were too short for that, and Mabille’s tendency to cut an asymmetric hem or drape a faux scarf over a printed blouse or go for a tonal stripe when a plainer fabric would do kept otherwise straightforward pieces from looking like staples. The designer was obviously working to create a sense of “specialness,” but his execution often read as affected.