In his showroom this morning, Antonio Berardi admitted that he's working on a Golden Globes dress as well as doing a lot of wedding gowns. He went on: "But I don't want to be the person who is known only for evening and for the body-conscious dress." With that in mind, he zeroed in on daywear for Pre-Fall, but his Prince of Wales checks and houndstooths aren't your standard guy-for-girl stuff. First, there is the subject of fit. Berardi is obsessive about it, and so waists were nipped, while jackets and vests—some with elongated hems to give the appearance of skirts worn over pants—closely followed the lines of the body. The other way Berardi lent his masculine fabrics a feminine touch was with embroideries. Crystals and blunt metal studs crisscrossed a sleeveless dress in a Prince of Wales check (it sounds like a lot, but it worked), and a houndstooth was, as he put it, "contaminated" with a waffle jacquard. The most striking example of this idea was a robe manteau in an icy gray tweed spliced with a giant houndstooth pattern in a deep teal.
A white V-neck gown with a gathered waist (picture an upside-down peplum) and flap pockets at the hips might be too advanced for the Globes—in Hollywood, straightforward and strapless are the general rules—but it was a fantastic dress.
