Carven's Guillaume Henry traded Montmartre for Mali for Resort. He'd been inspired, he said during a brief visit to New York, by the work of Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer whose 1960s photo reportage is one of street style's midcentury predecessors. The youth of Bamako, Henry said, "mixed European influence with their own origin," adapting as they went. Their contribution to his collection, he added, was a more casual element: "not as pretty or ladylike."
In keeping with the theme, Henry sketched sixties shapes—simple sheath dresses, bell-shaped coats, all with oversized collars—in zippy colors. (Sidibé shot in black-and-white, but here was a good case for petal pink, mustard, ice blue, and persimmon.) Henry's materials had a kind of make-do-and-mend scrappiness: silk shantung mixed with poly, cotton woven with plastic. It veered a little close to the precipice of American political incorrectness, but more to the point, it raised the question of how appealing polyester is as a selling point.
Still, there was a kicky modishness to the whole, with the cute puff-skirted dresses, the oversized costume jewelry (inspired in part by pieces worn by Nina Simone), and the models' spidery lashes. And the mood was infectious. You can practically hear the music in a Sidibé photo, so Henry paired his dresses with flats, one style made in conjunction with Ancient Greek Sandals. "For dancing," he said.
