Marina Moscone likes to describe her collection as encompassing three pillars: purity of silhouette, femininity, and a sense of artistry. At first glance, the clean lines and restrained palette of her clothes might lead you to connect “purity” with minimalism, but there’s nothing slick or cold about them; even the simplest pieces have a sense of the hand, be it a raw edge, a sculptural curve, or, most compellingly, a gestural twist or drape. The satin cascading down one side of a bustier and the subtle twist at the neckline of a side-slit tunic looked offhand, but came down to a complicated process of hand-sculpting, tucking, and stitching, all done in Moscone’s New York atelier.
“Evening tops” in general are a strength for Moscone, from those draped satin blouses to her sculptural curved bustiers—typically in a restrained palette of black, navy, or silver, and always styled with easy trousers and cushioned leather sandals. Those looks will feel familiar to women who have seen Moscone’s recent collections; what felt newer were the sheer blouses and slip dresses in a pastel marble print. It was loosely inspired by Helen Frankenthaler, but each iteration was a Moscone original: She set up a kid’s inflatable pool in her apartment as a makeshift marbling operation, a painstaking process that involves swirling different paints on the surface of a thick, seaweed-based solution. A lacy marbled silk slip dress was especially pretty, shown with a whisper-sheer layer of “tufted” white flowers on top. That’s about as decorative as Moscone gets; the success of her Basque tailoring and more understated separates at premier retailers suggest that plenty of women are on the same page.
