It's no effort at all to imagine Emilio Pucci gadding about the Mediterranean in the sixties. Surely he'd have run into Brigitte Bardot at some point, and how inspiring was that thought for the designer charged with juicing Pucci's legacy for the 21st century? Peter Dundas whipped up a summery confection of nautical stripes, ice cream colors, and grommeted minidresses that spoke to his ideal vision of Pucci's jet-set princess.
There was a fresh, casual edge to this collection that felt new for Dundas at Pucci. It was most obvious in evening dresses that weren't much more than elongated T-shirts, ombré-dyed for effect. But the key leggy-tunic-with-knee-boots look had a zap as commercial as anything Dundas has ever done for the label. Same with his way with a classic Pucci print. The one he liked most from the archives was a bluish pattern named "Zadig," and it made an appealing accent. Still, the most arresting visual in the collection was actually the knitwear pattern lifted from a tapestry in the house of the Sardinian grandparents of one of Dundas' assistants.
