“Nineties meets Y2K”—in other words minimalistic, long, and lean— is how Isabel Marant described her new resort collection during a recent showroom visit. The designer summed up her philosophy— one beloved by hip French gals for 30 years now—as the comfort of a fuzzy leopard jacquard coat or the ease of a dress—like the shirred pink print number here—that can be thrown on with white boots. Or a return to colored jeans, perhaps pale yellow, high-waisted, and worn with a ruffled bustier top to show off the shoulders.
“It’s still real, everyday clothes, but very seasonless,” the designer offered, nodding to a soft beige off-the-shoulder English rib knit worn over faded, gently flared jeans with a cargo pocket. Favorite retro tropes nodded to Pat Benatar’s heyday, with ’80s volumes and sloped, mutton-leg, or puffed sleeves (sometimes layered over lace), or ’90s-leaning second-skin jersey with cut-out details. The designer also tweaked her own lexicon, for example giving an embroidered bohemian popover the crop-top treatment. Biker-spirited denim and leather leavened the lineup with a masculine air.
Marant has always been eco-minded: buying less but better, and wearing clothes forever was part of her upbringing well before she set her sights on fashion. Here, what might appear as fur—for example in a mod, tweedy take on the twin-set—is in fact a cotton-linen blend. In an aside on that topic, the designer noted that fashion still has a thing or two to get right about newfangled stand-ins: anyone out there who finds virtue in wearing petrol-based substitutes, Marant has a few words for you.
