Julie de Libran gave her new Sonia Rykiel collection a narrative. In it, a Parisienne of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés stripe travels to California, is seduced by its landscape and lifestyle, and returns if not an utterly changed woman, then at least one with an altered wardrobe. From a Left Bank-y corduroy pantsuit printed with anemones, de Libran’s imaginary protagonist dipped into denim, workwear, and cheeky rainbow striped jersey pieces modeled after surfers’ board shorts, before returning to that Parisienne standby, the trench. Along the way, she picked up a few pointers about logo-ing—once an American low culture phenomenon that has been embraced and elevated by high-end brands and subsequently spread worldwide. That chic white trench is accented with black fil coupe Ss and Rs, and they likewise appear on a sheer tulle T-shirt dress. Also, the address of the label’s famous Paris store, 175 Boulevard Saint-Germain, is intarsia’d on a mink stole.
The story follows de Libran’s own, after a fashion. The French designer moved to San Diego as a child and spent many formative years there. She’s fluent in the fashion vocabularies of both sides of the pond. Proof of that can be found in the fact that Sofia Coppola, a longtime friend from de Libran’s days at Louis Vuitton, and a Cali girl-turned-Parisienne herself, wears a Sonia Rykiel workwear jumpsuit on set.
For all the metaphorical traveling of this collection, de Libran did not give Rykiel’s signature knits short shrift. An openwork crochet dress was a playful reimagining of the house’s familiar rainbow stripes, and she had fun with a trio of intarsia crews. But the most seductive pieces, at least in terms of the way the clothes feel, were the sweater and skirt and a slinky tank dress in plush velour.
