Too often a promising new CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist will buckle under the pressure that the distinction begets and produce a disappointing post-win collection. It’s the Britney Spears Condition played out at Bryant Park — too much praise, too little guidance. Happily, for every ten let downs there’s one remarkable triumph — on September 12, the young label Ohne Titel proved they were well equipped to meet the industry’s demands with a spectacularly confident collection that bellied their years. Like so many of fashion’s most powerful duos (think Marc Jacobs and business genius Robert Duffy), Flora Gill and Alexa Adams met at Parsons in 1999, where they bonded over a shared love of geometric design influences and architectural garment construction. After cutting their teeth under the tutelage of reborn cult-favorite Helmut Lang, and universal crowd pleaser Kaiser Karl, the girls reunited in 2006 to cofound a label dedicated to “intelligent design for a strong and modern woman.”
     Their Spring 2010 collection, which, according to the show notes, took “the graphic lines, lush textures, and bold colors in Egyptian reliefs and sculptures” as inspiration, allowed Gill and Adams to perfect their signature body-con technique within the limits of more intellectual — not to mention more difficult — design parameters.