Easy Rider? The Belstaff woman used to look more like she had a rider—but one whose demands would be far from easy to accommodate. Under Delphine Ninous, though, the British brand appears to be accelerating toward a more convincing solution to the intrinsic conundrum of its feminine offer: how to pitch womenswear that services Belstaff's ambitions to high luxury but doesn't gag by glossiness the grease-stained romance of its motorcycling heritage? Ninous' answer—which is actually a pretty great answer to many thorny life questions—is make it French-er.
Call it serendipity or call it a search engine, but as she researched this Resort collection something led Ninous to a wonderful sounding Biarritz festival called Wheels and Waves. This potent mix of pre-1975 motorcycles, surfing, and cool-as-hell (French) women gave her license to drive Belstaff into 2.0 territory. Outerwear, the key brand commodity, remains central but has—like all of Wheels and Waves' bikes—been subject to loving modification. The Rider coat (basically a mid-length trench with biker-friendly angled pockets at the breast and leather accents) has been cinched, given chrome snaps, and generally va-va-voomed. A waxed cotton parka came in an oversized camo print and had a silky-feel nylon sister, while a new shorter jacket called the Pathmaster pleasingly combined the military and the technical. There was a great pared-down, bicolor jacket the brand used to make for on-a-budget scooter riders in rubber, but here rebooted in leather. Belstaff's application of ribbed articulation patches on denim has already proved highly successful for both genders, but Ninous broadened the idea by playing with quilting on washed boyfriend jeans and a rib-stitched biker blouson. The surf elements were as vague as fashion surf/scuba elements tend to be—as if neoprene somehow makes you Kelly Slater—but the liberally draw-stringed crepe culottes, blousons, and minidresses did have an athleisurely attraction. The knitwear sometimes verged on the prosaic—in pastels too—but when subject to playful reimagining (notably in a knit bomber whose Aran body was coated in white painted leather), it took off.
No one is ever going to go to Belstaff for ball gowns. That would be like going to Oscar for a field jacket. But Ninous certainly has the chops—Comptoir des Cotonniers, Isabel Marant, Paul & Joe, Christian Lacroix—to reimagine Stoke's greatest gift to the world (Robbie Williams apart) as a moto-boho proposition.
