"To be a master of draping," purred Roland Mouret, "you have to be a slave to the fabric." This season Mouret said he worked slavishly—and in the case of look 13 alone, for several months—on achieving precisely the right balance between drape and fabric. This collection demanded such labor because the ground the designer was treading was, for him, new. Less fitted, more free. "And from the moment I framed that first dress, I saw something Italian in it, the way the woman can move," he added. Mouret started musing on Cinecittà's roster of mid-century Italian screen sirens: "What I love about Italian women is that louche attitude. The way they walk…you never know if they have just bought food from the supermarket or finished having sex." Roland!
Mouret's wandering eye thus fixed on muse, he tinkered with bias-pleated or circle-skirted deconstructions of his Galaxy dress, unleashed fil coupe on organza pistachio floral overlays upon pants and (actually quite tight) pencils, and played with bias-Bardot necklines. His favorite origami-touched folding details were there, as were his embracing skirts. But that Roman holiday of an Italian fantasy has transported Mouret to a sensual, sepia-tinted territory where tight is not always right—and it suits him.
