“It’s just FUN!” Frederick Anderson exclaimed backstage at the resort 2024 runway show for his eponymous label. “It’s resort, it’s holiday, it’s about having fun.”
Hosted at the Nebula, a futuristic nightclub in Times Square, the show opened and closed with performances by Natasha Bedingfield, who belted out two of her most popular hits: “Unwritten” and “Pocketful of Sunshine.” The musician and the designer first connected after she attended one of his shows, after which they decided to “do something together,” and so this special partnership came about.
This season, Anderson took us to outer space: There were disco ball astronaut helmets, stardust-like lurex knits, and airy, silky frocks in nebula-esque colors. To inform his silhouettes, the designer looked at “the future as we saw it in the late ’80s and ’90s,” with Geoffrey Beene and his cutouts being another reference. The latter was the most present in the way Anderson stylized the backs of his dresses with concave style lines and in cutouts on his lace sheaths.
For day, the designer offered cargo pants and micro shorts in deep navy denim. They sat well with his knit separates, which remain some of his most compelling work, and where this season he best captured that elusive day-to-night appeal. For evening, he presented a run of weightlessly draped silk numbers, some of which felt ready to be worn to the very same club we were in. Elsewhere, Anderson continued to be as inventive as ever with lace, looking to merge it with silks, knitwear, and embellishments.
But the most convincing look of all was Bedingfield’s opening stage look, a pair of denim cargo pants paired with a fringed lurex crocheted top (both of which walked the show). With many Frederick Anderson customers in attendance, it was the most impactful realization of the designer’s vision in action. Later, once the runway segment wrapped and Bedingfield stepped off-stage, the lights went down and the after-party began. As I walked out of the jam-packed room, I was told the Mayor was on his way in.
