Rodarte’s designs shimmer in the New York rain

There was a steady rain coming down as guests were handed transparent umbrellas and seated in a flower-strewn cemetery in Manhattan’s East Village for the return of Rodarte, designed by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, to New York Fashion Week.

There were grumbles as guests sat down on waterlogged wooden chairs, hastily wiped off with paper towels by harried assistants. But though it may have seemed the weather was going to ruin Sunday evening’s show, the opposite proved true. Somehow the raindrops and the misty air at the 19th-century Marble Cemetery enhanced both the visuals and the mood, providing a perfect backdrop for the filmy, floral creations that the Mulleavys specialize in. Guests were particularly taken with the rose-bedecked tulle veils and flowered headdresses that made the models look like gorgeous ghosts from a past century, perhaps a reference to the burial vaults below. The models even managed to avoid tripping on the rainsoaked pathway.