Veronica Etro's English grandmother, Audrey, used to bind her books in the beautiful fabrics that draped the Etro family's life. In each volume, she'd write the time and place she read the book. That's how we know the prints Veronica lifted from her gran's library for her show today were from the 1940s. Graphic, abstract, naïve, whimsical, they were the meat of the collection. Yes, Veronica paraded the family's signature paisley, splintered, collaged, and mutated, but it was those prints that captured the imagination. And she let them sing in fluid, wrapped shapes. True, there was a metal spine to the collection—the placket trailing down a blouse, for instance—but its essence was deconstruction. Maybe it was the Donna Summer remix on the soundtrack that cued the free and easy disco spirit. Whatever the cause, this was a collection that felt fresher and more alive than usual.
