The Mod Squad: Chris Benz Takes His Prints Back In Time

In a move that is decidedly spring-y, Chris Benz dotted his spring '13 presentation at Avery Fisher Hall with bright colors and florals, both girly and retro. The pieces, all cut to be breezy and flowy, ranged in color palettes from beige and gray to a '70s-style yellow and in-your-face greens and reds. While we were all about his purposeful layers (and layers, and layers), we couldn't help but notice the perfectly miniature totes all the models had in tow. The designer, himself, teamed up with Cambridge Satchel Company to create a limited-edition line of the arm candy just for the show — in coordinating colors, of course.

Keeping with the retro theme, Benz also brought back another long-gone trend: the hair crimp. Done by Nick Irwin for Catwalk by TIGI, tresses were curly with a hint of electrocution. "Anyone who knows Chris knows that his clientele need to have a sense of humor to get what he does every season," said Irwin. "I wanted to create a sort of texture in the hair that was like Japanese schoolkids, like in the '70s when Japanese schoolkids used to braid their hair, and then sleep on it and brush it out, and there was a kind of badness to it."

To accent the piece's prints, models wore cheeks that were pink on pink on pink. Daniel Martin, for Lancôme, aimed for a look that was spooky yet approachable. "We didn't want to do something that was too pretty, but we wanted it to have a bit of sensibility," said Martin. "There's nothing on the brow, no mascara, so the color is really going to be on the eye and the cheek." Could That '70s Show meets Geisha House be the next big trend?