Karen Walker presented her resort 2021 collection to Vogue Runway from the interior of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, a posh club that is currently home to the America’s Cup trophy. Seen via Zoom, far-away Auckland, sheltered by Waitemata Harbour and almost COVID-free, might as well have been Neverland. Though there was kismet involved in the making of this nautical-themed collection, the garments themselves have a ship-shape functionality that feels topical.
Founded in 1871, the Squadron will celebrate its sesquicentenary (150th anniversary) next year, around the time this collection will be available; a happy synchronicity that Walker discovered only after settling on her main theme. As she and her team were playing with the idea of a fictional yacht club it dawned on them that there were many in the city, and they might work with a real one. Declaring, “We’ve got the yacht club just down the road,” Walker called Squadron, and a collaboration was born. It’s the first of its kind for the club; the season’s prints are pulled straight from the Squadron’s archive or inspired by it.
Breton stripes, polka-dot, flag, and post-card-like prints are used in a collection that mixes preppy and sporty staples with pretty, if tepid, Victoriana dresses, some tea-party ready—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the Squadron’s patron. They dresses nod, Walker says, to the history of the club. The designer’s denims and pants, high-waisted with decorative buttons and full or flared legs, look terrific when paired with coordinating jackets or printed blouses, but the collection’s hero pieces are the really functional ones; the windbreakers, raincoats, and hats that look good and work hard—and also fit into narratives that are a bit more inclusive.
“The raincoats are real raincoats, they will keep you dry. The colors are punchy, they are bright and vivid, which is what you need in a sailing situation,” Walker explains. “There is a real pragmatism to [the collection]. It’s an elevated version, but I think there is also a romance and nostalgia to it that celebrates our harbor, and harbor, by very definition, is a place of protection.”
Building on that idea, Walker’s collection might be seen as a sort of sartorial port in a storm for those who are many nautical miles from Auckland.
