How to stand out at a party
It takes a certain elan and energy to wear an embroidered simon with a gingham shirt dress, a scarf print bag and a carpet-skirt over the top, but if 2016 was the year of maximalism (thank you Gucci, Erdem, Valentino, Chanel, Proenza Schouler, Pucci…), then 2017 is the year of more maximalism.
Even if you’re the kind of minimalist who thinks grey is a bit racy, you have to concede there is good in this. Print and colour attract positivity in much the same way as well-behaved babies and cute puppies – and the trend is allowing small labels to shine in a sea of bland conformity. Rianna+Nina is one such.
Set up in 2014 by Rianna and Nina (are you following me?), this is as far from the corporate scalable model as it gets: everything is handmade from vintage fabrics – Japanese and Chinese embroideries, real gold and silver thread brocades, Gobbelins tapestries, Fifties silk souvenir-scarves (the kind Dolce & Gabbana and Prada have repopularised) and Greek linens. Selfevidently, each piece is a one-off. Unexpectedly, one size just about fits all.
When we meet in their temporary sales space on London’s Charing Cross Road ( Vogue, avenue32. com, modaoperandi. com and the shop at Bluebird have all booked to see them later), Nina, a former marketing director for Galeries Lafayette in Germany, is wearing at least four cacophonous layers and looks wonderful. Rianna, who was brought up in a family vintage fabric business, has kept things relatively chicsimple in a table cloth – albeit an exquisitely embroidered one from her native Greece.
The two met at a vintage fair and immediately staged an international entente cordial – it must be their surnames. Nina’s is Kuhn. Rianna’s is Kounnou, which is surely the same thing. Their resulting store in Berlin, near Soho House, is a laboratory – they have three seamstresses, including one who flits back and forth to Paris, where she works for a couture house. The clothes, which come in seven basic shapes, including a kimono, a cropped jacket and a full skirt – are meticulously made, often from old Lanvin, Dior or Balmain scarves. The prices reflect that (from £320 for a small bag). Then again, they’re guaranteed not to date.
“One man, wearing black head to toe, like everyone in Berlin, walked in off the street and said, ‘What is this?’ ” says Nina. “He walked out in a pink patterned silk jacket vowing to return.”
“Yes, always black,” says Rianna sorrowfully. “Berliners are wedded to it. And they don’t spend money on clothes. Munich, London and Hamburg are much better in that respect.”
Luckily there is their online store, which also sells adorable vintage scarf bags, cushions and lampshades. “People get addicted,” says Nina. “Once you start wearing colour and pattern, it’s hard to stop.”
But still, it can be intimidating, I suggest. “You just have to love it,” says Nina. “And start gradually, maybe with a printed kimono that you throw on over a black dress or jeans”
Rianna shows me a wrap coat: checked wool one side, multi-coloured silk swirls the other. “You wear it one way to work, and the other to go out. It’s so versatile.” Oddly, she’s right.