Claudia Li has been thinking about her hometown of Auckland, New Zealand, which she hasn’t seen in 13 years. “I guess I’ve been homesick,” she said, a feeling she intends to further explore for Spring 2019. Here, the reflections turned toward her childhood home, where her mother still lives and tends a garden, and its clusters of ranunculus and roses lead directly to Resort’s hand-painted floral print.
Those heart-shaped green leaves and peonies bloomed on short-sleeve skirt sets cut from a waterproof nylon; a special coated gabardine also conjured the image of morning dew and was used on a three-piece khaki trench set (top, skirt, and cape) and a dressy coat with slight puff sleeves and a ruched band around the waist. There was a second abstract pointillist print that, Li explained, was drawn to resemble the confetti fall of buds from trees in late summer.
One noteworthy design detail was the addition of removable hip pads, zipped into internal side pouches on ankle-grazing skirts and suit jackets. “I call them confidence enhancers,” Li said, laughing. They, too, were inspired by her mother, as the exaggerated hips create a more “maternal figure.” As a matter of course, the clothes read mature, whether or not that was Li’s intent. On the flip side, they did work well with the looser silhouettes she employs to accommodate more than one body type (always a good thing); the added shape provided a nice lift.
