While on a production trip to Portugal, Beaufille’s Chloé Gordon found herself observing the fashions of elderly men and women in the rural towns in the Porto area.
“I noticed a common thread of how they were dressing, whether it was mixing suiting or casual separates with a crocheted or handcrafted textile element with scarves or bags. I wanted to try to modernize these details associated with ‘grandma’ style or aesthetics in a modern, effortless way and to push fabrics that felt special and evoked nostalgia. It’s a very lace-heavy collection, which was the starting point of building it,” she said of Beaufille’s pre-fall inspiration, which led into Gordon using a trio of lace (crochet, allover paisley and a decorative striped, stretch lace) throughout the collection.
Gordon embraced lace’s characteristics of open work and “allowing the surface of whatever’s underlying to show through,” to whip up a slew of full lace garments, ranging from mididresses and feminine blouses to skirts of varying lengths, alongside fashions with strategically placed panels and accents, like a combination sleeveless black jersey dress with plunging lace panel at the chest or lace shawls atop minimalist coats and clean suits. Gordon also took the idea one step further, developing black lace trimmed underwear to style beneath the collection’s sharp suiting and transparent styles.
Alongside all of the lace, Gordon peppered in new chunky knits in emerald green, pushed forward Beaufille’s denim program in beige and light blue washes, and layered the looks with additional tailored maxi skirts and a variety of adjustable flood cargo pants. The effect, styled with Beaufille cofounder, codesigner and Gordon’s sister Parris Gordon’s updated jewelry (which included beautiful new takes on their codes of asymmetry, pearl clusters and hand-molded foliage and floral-inspired shapes), offered a balance of modernity and heritage with strong sartorial appeal.
“For the most part, we try to stay pretty true of keeping the codes of minimal and timeless shapes but really wanted to push these bolder fabrications,” Gordon said, adding that each garment was designed with transeasonality in mind to wear as a special piece on its own, or layered for a dynamic look.
