It's a wonderful surprise to roll up to a collection appointment and enter the doors of the Grand Prospect Hall, an artfully tacky event space in the depths of Park Slope, Brooklyn. (You might know it from The Royal Tenenbaums or the regionally famous "We Make Your Dreams Come True!" television commercial.) Cynthia Rowley, who loves shooting her lookbooks in unexpected places, was having fun exploring the rooms filled with stacks of metal serving plates or cluttered with props and weird taxidermy, the pastel frescos on the ceilings, and the walls framed with elaborate moldings.
The Grand Prospect Hall was an adventure for the designer and her crew, but its very particular patina also happened to nicely complement Resort. Rowley shot the model—standing at the top of those famously ornate stairs—in a dizzying number of prints. "It was the idea of all these different elements mixed together," Rowley said. "A marriage of the environment and the clothes, and you can't tell which is inspiring which."
The season offered a good amalgamation of Rowley's aesthetic as it stands now. Lush, shiny brocades were done up as patchworked dresses or crop tops; cropped kick flares were perforated with a graphic motif; and a fluorescent patchworked tweed—sourced from famed Parisian mill Malhia Kent—got the drug-rug treatment. Silhouettes remained in Rowley's comfort zone: Late-'60s, early-'70s A-line shifts and peasant blouses ruled, but with occasional sporty touches so as not to feel too costumey. "Mixing things you would never mix," was the name of the game, Rowley said, and it proved to be just the right amount of chaos.
