Isa Arfen – Pre Spring/Summer 2016 Ready-To-Wear

Isa Arfen’s Serafina Sama went absolutely old school for Resort. The collection, as she described it, was about “glamorous ladies going on holiday,” ladies like her aunts—one dead keen on folkloric getups, the other always in vintage YSL. Slightly eccentric, in other words, but delighting in dressing.

Sama imagined the Caribbean as their destination. Maybe it was that notion stirred in with the folklore and the YSL that gave her collection a distinctly Creole tang. If the outfits in delicious floral shades—daffodil, fuchsia, geranium—summoned up the spirit of Loulou de la Falaise in her Yves-ning finery, their intensely toned off-the-shoulder tops and poufy peplumed skirts were just as much of the islands. And Sama cut them from cotton poplin and cotton silk faille (once, she’d have used shantung), so they were glamorous and casual. “Nothing too precious or intimidating,” she said. There were wrap skirts patchworked from vichy check; full, pleated shorts that knotted at the waist; and the relaxed trenchcoat, high-waist pants, and culottes that are this designer’s signature pieces. Sometimes the mood was Doris Day as much as Loulou, Lacroix as much as YSL, but that only accentuated the positive.