There’s a new approach at Nina Ricci: “We want to give a sharp and curated vision, not just in the end result but in the development as well,” Lisi Herrebrugh said on a video call from Paris. “From the beginning, we now work from a limited amount of sketches. It puts a certain pressure on the garments, but in the end, they get a lot of attention too.” Her words could have captioned the post-lockdown “wardrobe reset” many are now talking about in the fashion landscape. “It’s about not having endless amounts of choices, but instead being really focused,” said Rushemy Botter, driving home the idea.
Newly rehabbed from the overload and overconsumption of our former lives, it’s likely our fashion mentalities will respond better to a lack of options coming back into the real world. In that sense, you could tell Herrebrugh and Botter had considered this collection in a meaningful way. Tasked with preserving Nina Ricci’s haute couture legacy for the present and future, they understand that a certain adaptability is necessary to create a relevant product. They want to “ground couture memories in everyday ways,” as Herrebrugh said. Their collection conveyed—through construction and illusion—couture shapes in garments devoid of the trussed-up constriction those structures would traditionally entail.
Infused with the swimwear influences the designers—Caribbean via the Netherlands—have brought to Nina Ricci, the silhouettes manifested in a “dressed” look disguising a fit and tactility native to sports- or casualwear. “An outspoken shape that keeps its functionality,” Herrebrugh said, demonstrating the easiness of a lime green suit jacket that casually zipped into a couture volume. In another take on the same effect, an easy sheathlike dress was emblazoned with a print of a jacket collaged from archive pictures, creating a kind of trompe l’oeil.
Similar methodologies were exercised in various ways and shapes in every garment, each carefully studied and selected for an essential wardrobe. Applied to a black workwear jacket that slightly trapezed at the back, it generated a casual and very wearable feeling that was interesting to encounter at Nina Ricci. If you stripped away the furry shoes and bucket hats that fancified their expression, it was a pretty realistic proposal for a post-confinement look. “It’s not like you have to wear a full Nina outfit. You can wear this with Levi’s jeans,” said Herrebrugh. That wasn’t a bad idea for a future proposal.
