Louis Vuitton Resort 2013Those designers inspired to tackle the question of dressing for the tropics usually go the skimpy route, showing all sorts of itsy-bitsy, skin-baring clothes and gauzy fare. That’s not Julie de Libran’s way. For resort, under the direction of Marc Jacobs, she held Indochine in mind, not the New York restaurant, not the movie, but the one-time French colony.
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There was a fabulous effortlessness in her laid-back new proportions, the tunics, the relaxed camp shirts, and drop-waist dresses, bringing high-concept style and offhand cool all together in the same look.
Chanel Resort 2013
With exquisite timing on the eve of Nicolas Sarkozy’s handover to the new Socialist president François Hollande, the fashion world gathered at Versailles to watch Karl Lagerfeld play the Sun King to Cara Delevingne's Marie Antoinette. Well, that was sort of the gist of it—a Chanel resort collection staged at about six in the evening amid the spectacular playing fountains and waterfalls of Louis XIV’s gardens, with the sun blazing in an exceptional burst, after several weeks of dull, drizzly weather. A blue-bewigged and ponytailed Delevingne stomped insouciantly across the golden gravel, heading up a posse of girls in a mash-up of teeny, tiny, pastel-colored pannier dresses, foppish, gilded eighteenth-century jackets, and wholly twenty-first-century variants on denim and shorts.
There was much charm: a play on fichu necklines, straw cartwheel sun hats, and hints of a corseted, ruffly-skirted milkmaid silhouette. Still, despite the historical narrative, there were plenty of Chanel tweed jackets and suits on parade—regular, yet special enough for an older generation to buy into.
Marc Jacobs Resort 2013
Marc Jacobs’s resort collection was infused with a spirit of giddy optimism that drew on uplifting Pop Art color and print, and toyed with playful proportions that sampled the linear seventies, the puffball eighties, and the deconstructed nineties—all spun into a uniquely Jacobsian 2013 mix.
The collection brimmed with options—from a lean silhouette of skinny crepe dresses in bright, overscale florals, or tunics worn over pants with a gentle, bias flare, to stiffly tailored jackets paired with airy bouffant skirts that had a soupçon of eighties Christian Lacroix to them. Those slender shapes were made in vivid-colored crepe scattered with rose and carnation prints, in eye-popping color combinations such as rich pink on mint or orange on purple—worn with chunky platform sandals that enhanced the seventies King’s Road flavor.
Alexander Wang Resort 2013
Some came with bib detailing, playing sheer off opaque. Others were constructed so that they were held together by vented seaming, injecting a sense of airiness into the design that conspired to be both graphic and fragile. And there were those that were barely glimpsed, except as shrunken and cropped, and attached to cardigans and tank dresses in a veil-like sports mesh.
Alberta Ferretti Resort 2013
The designer replaced the austere, black threads from her fall runway show with the type of gently fluttering, crêpe de Chine dresses and crocheted slips that might have you reaching for the record player and putting The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun on repeat. The designer’s idea was to interpret those retro proportions into more contemporary silhouettes, which explains why she restricted tie-dye prints to the hemlines of industrial skirt suits and when she did let them ripple across an aqua beach-ready caftan, she was sure to update the look with a more flattering, cinched waist.
Altuzzarra Resort 2013
It deftly exemplified—and expanded upon—the sense of bohemian rigor that’s running through the season. There were a pair of slim, strict jodhpur pants in relaxed silk ikat and a great skirt suit in tweed with mother-of-pearl beads and gold, black, and white sequins. It wasn’t flashy, just decorated in the tradition of dressing held by tribes like the Masai, whom Altuzarra looked to when researching the collection. He also interpreted their custom of wrapping fabric so that folds in his dresses and skirts—often juxtaposed against something streamlined like a thin, V-neck sweater—created peplums.
In this collection there were some great examples including an indigo-and-white striped trench and an ecru blazer with a shape implying a bolero layered over a peplum jacket—just right for the city. As for dresses, Altuzarra (reigning prince of the body-con) introduced a new silhouette, a blousy, long-sleeved, belted dress.
Carolina Herrera Resort 2013
Resort, for me, is color, fun, a new silhouette. . . ” Herrera said. “It should be about making getting dressed simple. Herrera’s collection ticked all three boxes. The color was straightforwardly pretty—chartreuse, dusky blue, cayenne red, and a slate gray that radiated a warm sensuousness despite its relative sobriety because of the addition of gleaming copper beading. The fun came in the form of her adorable prints—one she has dubbed “The Lovers,” with a cartoon guy and girl cavorting across flowers arranged to look like lace—not to mention the sparkling rabbit motifs appliquéd at the waist of an otherwise austerely athletic dress in ivory banded with black. And as for that new silhouette, Herrera had that too, a fluttery, longer line that used to be called tea-length, which looked fresh and new and absolutely right, simply because its point was to be nothing more than effortless and charming to wear. When so much of resort has focused on 1,001 variations on pants, this will be the dress shape, and the proportion, to think about come later this year.
Chloé Resort 2013
The designer played with a few of the season’s trends, as well, but deftly translated them into Chloé speak. Pants, admittedly a house hallmark, were drop-waisted, pleated, and tapered at the ankle—a decidedly more laid-back fit than the straight, slim, and/or flared line we’re seeing elsewhere. And while others are using leather to tough or strict effect, Waight Keller crumpled hers a bit and lined it with terrycloth so that one look in particular resembled a super-luxe sweatshirt and gym shorts.
-to be continue-
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