Nonchalant arty crowd (including PS1’s Klaus Biesenbach, photographer Collier Schorr, and Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen)? Check. Shoe gazer soundtrack? Check. Space-techno mood (including a silver mylar catwalk, a nod to fall 2008’s gold foil spacewalk—still one of his best)? Double check.

Come rain or slush, Patrik Ervell sticks to his guns. Rather than force himself to make the requisite seasonal U-turn, he forges ahead, refining, adjusting and making slight improvements. For fall these tweaks included: quilting, a ubiquitous statement from the New York collections, but here in techno fabrics it seemed right at home: 90s suiting morphed into an intriguing placketed collar jacket; nerdy footwear with a cross-trainer feel, a la Raf Simons; baseball hats with a slightly sinister feel.

Overall, we might not get the element of surprise from Ervell, but we’re given something much better: a clear vision. And this can have quite an impact—especially on a daily wardrobe. But lest you think it’s all stone-faced practicality, there was also a dash of dandy cheek, with Willard-inspired hairdos and two metallic-green finishing looks—a coat with matching pants and an anorak cape, which was positively extravagant…in a restrained Ervell kinda way.