After 25 years in business, Jill Stuart showed her first Pre-Fall collection this morning. She was urged by retailers to add the in-between season to meet customer demand for nonstop newness; in the middle of summer, the Jill Stuart girl wants one thing: dresses. So she designed a few handfuls of them: There was her best-selling wrap dress, updated with a deep ruffled neckline; a few bubble-sleeved dresses in floral-printed cotton; a long-sleeved, body-skimming viscose dress that felt better than a nightgown; and a classic prairie dress in a ’90s ivory floral. They covered a lot of bases, but almost all of them could be worn year-round and captured the easy-yet-special feeling most women want in a dress these days.
A few dresses also came in menswear-inspired fabrics, like a red micro-check, a navy “tie silk” jacquard, and a beige Glen plaid. It was new territory for Stuart, but worked nicely for Pre-Fall, a season premised on year-round wearability. It’s no secret that men’s fabrics are trending on major runways, but Stuart’s customer probably isn’t into the oversize, shoulder-padded suits we’ve seen elsewhere. She’s more likely to wear the trend in a quintessentially “Jill Stuart” way: as a sensual dress in an unexpected plaid, or a tailored check jacket layered over a floral frock.
