Sylvie Millstein’s life is a little bit stressful right now. She has newborn twin boys at home, plus two grade school boys finishing up school and getting prepped for summer activities. Thankfully, Millstein’s design studio is directly across the street from her home, making it easy for her to jet back and forth multiple times a day. As such, her latest Resort 2020 collection was not about traveling to some far-flung locale (she can’t remember the last vacation she took), but made instead for a woman who is constantly running around. Well, a busy woman running around who also has the party and black tie gala circuit to attend to. Hellessy is a brand that caters to a certain niche of urban-dwelling woman that is constantly event-ing and working, moving from one place to the other and not wanting to change clothes in between.
Millstein’s designs are sensitive to this idea of day-to-night dressing. Her trompe l’oeil shirts, like the one this season that appeared to have a bra peeking out from the dropped shoulders, are meant to be worn with jeans and sneakers or with a pair of her ribbon-trimmed trousers and heels. There were plenty of these hybrid, interchangeable separates this season, some more appealing than others, like the draped, one-shoulder sweater that tied in sections down the sleeve. Millstein’s cocktail dress offering was nice, particularly the bubble hem, balloon-sleeve mini embroidered with a moon and starburst motif. The crochet knit gown that looked as if its hem had been tied up to the thigh at one side was also appealing, but an emerald green silk dress cut bluntly short at the front and long at the back struck a different, not as charming note. Millstein certainly showed range in terms of the sheer number of pieces and the variance in silhouettes. She clearly had the idea of more is more on the brain, even if at times the vision went in a few different directions.