Venice may be sinking, but Lela Rose won't go down with it. Diving into historical references just isn't her style, so she set things up for fall with one eye on the city's baroque style and the other on one of her contemporary stained glass windows: Laura de Santillana.
During a preview, Rose said she learned about Santillana's work secondhand from her mother. In fact, it's been about a decade since the designer herself visited Venice. “I guess I better get back there soon before she disappears,” she joked. But her distancing from both is what fueled an unstudied approach, rooted in new textile developments.
“It feels very opulent, but very focused on comfort,” Rose explained. “And that's something I've been working on a lot: trying to keep the fabrics light, but really interesting with the texture.”
Drawing on De Santillana's elongated cylinders, there was a big push for curve-hugging knit fabrics. An off-the-shoulder pointelle midi with a draped waist looked cozy, but it lacked the same oomph of, say, a citrine dress speckled with microsequins or a skirt woven with pink tinsel. Even more fun were the billowing, striped-print dresses reminiscent of the artist's polychrome cane technique.
Rose's night fair was equally light. Aside from a few sunflowers clustered on bodices, she kept embellishments to a minimum. Instead, chevron fringe and brocade over chiffon backing were used for elegant-looking ensembles with puffed sleeves, bow backs and puffed hems, nodding to the 1950s and 1960s. At clients' request, Rose also added capsules because “they are always looking for a cover, so we are always trying to find ways to give them a new one,” he said.
Colors are picked up in the way light filters through the glass at sunset, from smoky to jewel-like, often with the metallic finishes of Venetian mask costumes. But Rose is a Midwestern girl at heart with Southern roots, which revealed themselves in the most endearing way. Pointing to an unmistakably American shirt with a “bronze-brown” fil coupe waistband, she compared the color to old leather saddles and added, “I live half my time on a ranch, so I have to take inspiration from it.”
