Hothouse flowers
Florals in fashion – let us count the ways. But hear us out: bold and moody, these florals are replete with sly assurances of abundance and luxuriance. Resort is the season that lasts the longest on the retail floor, making the most of holiday season dressing, so, naturally, designers look to their own time abroad. Tory Burch remembered visiting Round Hill in Jamaica as a child – perhaps we can expect an Australiana theme collection in due course, with her label opening its first Antipodean premises next year. Erdem Moralioglu had stumbled upon a paper-making store in Kyoto while on a holiday. The paper went on to inspire the prints and colours for the Erdem resort collection, with anemones that bloomed over tea dresses. As an antidote to preconceptions of sweetness and prettiness, these flowers are backed onto darker shades, making them even more dramatic and striking. It’s about extracting the extraordinary from the ordinary, too. At Alexander McQueen, what seemed to be a fabric printed with flowers was in fact hand-painted leather, taken from British folk art. Christopher Kane sought to elevate the common pansy for his first resort runway show. “The pansy seems so simple, so everyday ... When I researched the pansy more, it took on a deeper meaning; it stands for thoughtfulness and is ultimately a symbol of freethinking.” Enlarged, the pansies enveloped his models in an embrace. ZW