Isabel Marant fans may want to sit down before reading this: There wasn't a studded, cuffed suede ankle bootie in sight on her Fall runway. The signature boots have inspired instant wait lists around the world and sell out within hours of arriving in stores, but backstage Marant said she was ready for a change.
The pointy-toed pumps with the floppy bows on the sides weren't her only news. Like plenty of other designers, she's been riffing on the eighties for a couple of seasons with much success, but for Fall she was thinking fifties. As in: fitted jeans rolled up mid-calf, a faded denim jacket, a sparkly tee, cat-eye eye liner, a high ponytail, and long dangly earrings.
Marant threw in a silver lamé party dress and draped and wrapped miniskirts here and there, but the show was essentially a teasing out of the many different ways to riff on that core look. There was a stripey rugby sweater worn with short silver paillette leggings, a leather-sleeved baseball jacket with cropped red motorcycle leather pants, a white rabbit jacket and black capris, and so on. If it came off as repetitive to the in-crowd at the show, there were enough sexy/easy/shiny bits to have Marant's followers thronging to her about-to-open Soho boutique, It boots or no.
