Perfect is so overrated. "I love it when there's something a little bit wrong," said Alessandra Rich of a Fall collection that she dubbed Bad Reputation.
The designer's mix of well-intentioned chic meets girl-gone-bad came through in big bows, duchesse silk, taffeta, and a prim georgette top-half of a dress with a transparent black skirt in Chantilly lace. That fabric is a big Rich signature, and this season she used it to walk on the wild side, working it in layers, patchworks, panels, and inserts, or simply as a long, front-slit overskirt veiling a negligee miniskirt. "Not only is lace very feminine, but I love that you look at it once, then you realize you don't understand, so you have to look again," she noted. Elsewhere in the collection, she created a psychedelic vibe in bold swathes of purple and gold on white stretch cady.
Rich's silhouette, like the designer herself, is long and lean. This time she reined in her palette mainly to black and white to focus on exploring asymmetry and an amped-up mix of fabrics—sometimes as many as fourteen on a single dress. Touches of marabou and sparkle rounded out the story: The cheekiest number had a see-through bodice with strategically placed discs of firework embroidery over the breasts. "She's definitely a party girl, but she doesn't think in terms of occasions," Rich said, describing her muse. "She doesn't care about a bad reputation. She just wants to have fun."
