SPRING IS HERE, I HEAR

It’s All About the Girl
By Barbara Barton Sloane

This season designers put basic black and stark white on the back-burner, choosing instead florals, sheer fabrics and vibrant hues. Spring/Summer is shaping up as the ticket for women who like to look pretty.

The Spring collection by the Badgley Mischka boys seems inspired by the 1920s French Rivera of “Tender is the Night” – beads, fringe, champagne-soaked nights. They re-invented a drop- waist flapper dress in blush tulle and satin. In another reference to their inspiration, the designers studded a halter-neck sleeveless dress with crystals in a geometric Art Deco style. The pair said they were taken with “the way that this decade’s clothes were put together and polished, yet didn’t grab the body.” Grabbing delicately at the body and in a more modern vein, there’s an above the knee, spaghetti strapped, chiffon-floaty design, white to the hips and then morphing into a tender leaf green. Their strapless dress of polished cotton printed in boldly patterned blue and white is as fresh and crisp as a spring morning.

Giles Mendel cited the French photographer Guy Bourdin, master of erotic innuendo, as his touchstone. In his romantic nod to spring, Mendel couldn’t resist a painted flower here and a lace insert there. Some of his strongest looks, however, are his fresh basics, among them a sandy-hued, sleeveless, casually belted dress, cut just above the knee with patch-pockets top and bottom, a modern twist on the classic shirt dress.

Lavish is the word for the fabrics Carolina Herrera chose for her Spring/Summer collection. Last year she cited Edvard Munch as her inspiration. This season it’s the interiors illustrator Jeremiah Goodman, among whose clients were Pauline de Rothschild and Diana Vreeland - thus luxe is the touchstone here. Herrera’s heart is in her evening wear. She offers a short and sweet all-white design: an above the knee white skirt worn with a cotton T and topped with a sequined jacket splashed with champagne flowers.

She is nothing if not a savvy businesswoman, but for Spring, Diane von Furstenberg has pleasure in mind. She says it is about “the fantasy of escaping to exotic islands and the wilder shores of love.” Indeed. Her menagerie of print offerings is well-represented in a jaunty black flowers-on-cream dress, swingy skirt and head gypsey-wrapped in the same whimsical fabric.

The fast route to a successful Spring/Summer Pucci show: book a flight to Capri. That’s where, after all, the island paradise most closely associated with this print house was born exactly 60 years ago. One Pucci look this season that effectively channels Capri is a blazingly bright number in citrus-colored tangerine. Pucci avoids sugar-shock, however, in his elegantly cut Bermuda shorts paired with a flowing blouse punctuated with fuschia and slipping sexily off one shoulder. Sizzling as Capri itself!

This season in Milan, it took Versace to get hold of drapey, goddessy dressing and make it look hot, easy and believable. Donatella shows beautifully constructed silk jersey dresses – from short togas to open-backed draped shifts in a rainbow of colors, each piece gorgeous in its own right. One of her more casual designs: shorter than Bermuda, toast-colored shorts . The ample cut and fine tailoring saves them from looking inelegant. She tops the shorts by echoing spring’s theme and going completely printastic! A billowing silk blouse, turquoise slashes slithering around it, puts this look firmly in style for Spring/Summer ’08.

Looking at some Virgina Slims’ advertising of the late 70s and early 80s inspires the Michael Kors collection. “There was something about those women that was very sexy but sporty at the same time,” he explains. Kind of like the Kors woman. Come springtime, she’ll need clothes for lunch at the club, cocktails, cruises and galas too. Kors had plenty of suggestions, and one look that seems designed for a Maidstone lunch – impeccably cut white pants worn with a pristine sleeveless greige, double-breasted top ending at the hips and circled with a narrow gold belt. He accessorizes this with an insouciant wide-brimmed hat, large shades and gold jewelry.

Frida Giannini’s Gucci Spring/Summer designs picks up on some of the things going around this season – the fifties big-skirted silhouette, a bit of toga dressing, patent-leather accessories, and yes, ubiquitous prints. One sure stand-out: a short-sleeved, v-neck dress, gently flowing skirt just to the knee, On white ground, Gucci splashes it with a black and red geometric design, a print that pulses and appears, at any moment, to leap off the dress. She pairs it with short black gloves, big black patent bag and red peep-toe pumps. Ah yes, Spring is here!