Emilia Wickstead has made a career out of dressing London’s most stylish socials though she’s steadily building a fan base across the pond. It’s why she chose to present her first official Resort collection in New York yesterday. The New Zealand-born designer was clearly angling to seduce fashion-conscious Anglophiles with her new clothes—cue pretty English rose motifs and ladylike Peter Pan collars. Wickstead said she’d been looking at Frida Kahlo’s wardrobe for inspiration and yet the overall effect of her long-sleeved silk and chiffon tea dresses with billowy sleeves was more country garden than artist atelier. Picasso was her reference for the color palette, and several of the now-signature crepe maxi dresses were dosed in vibrant turquoise and tangerine—a color that has been not-so-quietly making the rounds, along with lemon yellow, this season.
Wickstead recently launched her first wedding collection, though her latest offering appeared to be headed in a more casual direction: She’s expanded her knitwear and the denim she launched for Fall. Whether her designer mom jeans will catch on in America, the land of true blue connoisseurs, remains to be seen. On the other hand, the neat polo shirts and cardigans with jewellike buttons had a subtle eccentric, English charm that felt universally appealing.
