NARCISO RODRIGUEZ.

Byline: Mark Holgate

Should you wish to acquaint yourself with what Narciso Rodriguez thinks is the defining moment of his fall collection, you might want to cast your eye over the fourteenth outfit on his runway. It was this: a tiny black bolero over an even tinier vest with hook-and-eye fasteners, worn over an ivory silk tank and a pair of heavy-cotton-wool pants. To finish, he wound some heavy chains around the model's neck.

"It has so many different layers of what I was trying to do with this collection," Rodriguez says. "There was a very industrial wool cloth-tightly woven and modern-contrasted with the silk, and an attempt to make very strict shapes look relaxed through layering. It was about trying to find a pure, believable, approachable way to dress. That's always the challenge."

And it's a challenge that he has been rising to ever more gracefully. Rodriguez returned from showing and working in Milan to set up base in New York four years ago. Here, he very naturally fell into the role of the man advancing the cause of all-American sportswear-turning out sleek, clean-chic pieces, all stripped-down silhouettes, sharp angles, and monochromatic palettes.

Rodriguez is a designer who still wants to explore what minimalism can offer women today. After most of its other champions (Helmut Lang and Jil Sander most notably) have fallen by the wayside, Rodriguez continues to investigate the possibilities that technofabrics-flip through your memory book of the nineties, and you'll remember that term-can offer. If others now concentrate on materials with ritzy names and a ritzier couture past-gazar, matelasse, grain de poudre-he prefers to experiment. And when he cuts a trench coat from a wool that's been treated so it's waterproof or spins raw and fine silk together for a red ...