Seven years ago this summer, Frida Giannini made her Gucci debut with her Flora print accessory range. She was in New York then to show it off, and she was back today, presenting a new Resort collection that reinterprets the Flora print (originally lifted from a fifties Gucci scarf made for Grace Kelly) in a new way. It was a nice full-circle moment.
Giannini has been on a roll lately, and the new lineup is a worthy successor to the hit she had on her hands in February. There were echoes of the Milan show here in a leopard-motif silk jacquard pajama set and a shirtwaist dress with a seventies feel. Pantsuits in denim blue and lavender with elongated jackets and low-slung, skinny flares also riffed on that decade.
Color is one of Giannini's big messages for Resort. In addition to those suits, she cut sixties-ish A-line shifts and long narrow evening numbers in solid shades of yellow, turquoise green, and raspberry. All of them were finished off with elaborate jeweled embellishments at the neckline that rendered actual necklaces superfluous.
The real star of the collection, though, was the Flora print. Like its designer, it's grown up some. Giannini called it "unfinished," pointing out the black and white flowers set in between and behind the colored-in ones. The floral motif turned up on everything from a white linen peacoat to the hem of a strapless silk jersey dress, but it was freshest on a belted dress in a blue and white stripe borrowed from a man's dress shirt.
