In a show that was as effervescent as the bubbles that cascaded from the ceiling at the finale, Antonio Marras celebrated the good vibrations of an ideal summer. (The soundtrack? The Beach Boys, of course.) The show hit one optimistic note and stayed there. Yves Klein blue, sunshine yellow, and the fuchsia of bougainvillea were the colors of Marras at his least complex— and remember, he's a designer who's most interesting when he's dark, romantic, and twisted. Still, he managed to tell a story that had his characteristic cinematic flair. The collection was, after all, called A Place in the Sun after the Liz Taylor classic. (The designer clearly has the actress on the brain. Her Suddenly Last Summer was the inspiration for his women's Resort line.)
The movie in Marras' mind was set in an idealized pre-lapsarian sixties, when pretty proto-jet-setters summered in Portofino or surfed on Waikiki. They wore hibiscus-printed linens with silk scarves knotted round their necks, or shorts suits in that Klein blue (including shoes and socks). They wholeheartedly embraced color and print, from cotton suits in raspberry or leaf green to lounging pajamas in tropical florals. Even their more professional side—layered windowpane checks in gray and navy—was livened up with a pop of fuchsia. Marras turned flowers into a new camo. He reproduced the Hawaiian shirt he'd found in a vintage shop in Texas in its authentic oversize (the swing to supersizing is already in full cry with Fall's Prada and Givenchy collections). It was just the sort of item you'd need for a good-time sing-along with Trini Lopez, whose 1963 smash hit If I Had a Hammer was surely making its first-ever appearance on the soundtrack of a fashion show.
