Creative designer Zoe Turner brought a dose of romance to St. John’s SoCal knitwear aesthetic for spring, starting with a sandy-hued tweed strapless bustier and matching cargo pants look that should have the brand’s burgeoning Hollywood fan club swooning. (Tommy Dorfman just wore a St. John blue tweed grommet detail skirt suit and bra top during New York Fashion Week.)
As one of St. John’s historically important design signatures, the jacket has been a big focus of Turner’s during her tenure at the house. But this season she focused on the cardigan as a starting point for a collection that upped the everyday ease and wearability factor for these COVID-19-conflicted times.
A papaya-colored cardigan dress with gold buttons, striped ribbed grandpa cardigan and tube skirt set and slouchy lilac double-breasted cardigan jacket and Bermuda shorts suit were all cozy and chic, and looked great with fluffy mohair clogs — but would work with sneakers, too.
Shirt jackets, cardigan jackets and ankle-length skirts in fraying indigo patchwork or red-and-blue picnic checks, paired with rope dad sandals, also had a relaxed accessibility, which should help open up the O.C.-conservative brand to more customers.
There were a few things for dressing up, of course — a white, 1940s-reminiscent tea dress with puff sleeves and thoughtful California poppy-shaped gold buttons, a drapey dandelion-yellow tuxedo, and a cream slipdress with delicate gold chain mail tank. Elegant but easy.
