fashion - The Seventh Sphinx

Rosie Assoulin is a young (29) New York designer who has been mentioned more and more in the press in the last year as someone to watch. She researched and interned for several years (and this after helping her jewelry designer mother from 14 on) before her first collections, all built on noticing, decade after decade, patterns of long, floor-brushing pieces, generous volumes of fabric, sashes, and bold solids. The results are clean and sweeping, with an appealing blend of boxy and fitted elements.

Here are some of my favorite looks from her Resort 2014 collection.

images from rosieassoulin.com

While the concept of a resort collection kind of cracks me up sometimes (a line you would theoretically wear at a resort, or on vacation…or in the summer… but I guess ‘summer’ was already taken in ‘spring/summer’ and these things are immutable), I often like them anyway, if only for their heavy use of white (and other bright colors), of which I approve.

These structures strike me as regal and yet fully modern (if not a bit of the future). Their silhouettes are cousins of silhouettes many centuries old in some cases (sashes with giant, bustle-like bows, trains, floor length skirts, complex draping), but the textures and the complete lack of embellishment are current, and these designs do not read as old-fashioned in anyway to me.

This look has a polished up top/party downstairs contrast that I like. The multiple anchors of solid white bring it all together for me.

These shoes are quite fake. Les knockoffs.* I wanted to try out the studded look and find that I like it, but it’s not love. They are uncomfortable, too. I have too many other shoes I prefer to keep them but they have convinced me that I want to find a pair of white pumps. I’m totally on board with the trend of white pumps.

*I don’t generally have much interest in knockoffs—I don’t generally have much interest in their originals—but once in a while they are convenient for playing. I don’t feel a moral quandary about it when the original is something I would never consider purchasing anyway. Louboutin is not losing a potential sale here. Still, they are unsatisfying unless made well in their own right, and desired in their own right (there is a bag I want, of which I’m considering getting a (still pretty expensive, but comparably cheap) replica, because I find the silhouette so appealing and can find no wantable substitute) which they usually are not. I often later think my money could have been better spent…this is undeniably the case. It always serves as a lesson, however, and from such lessons one emerges an increasingly superior shopper.**

**Interesting thoughts on this in Garance Dore’s recent post about style bloggers being, in a way, people who are just really good at shopping for themselves. There is a lot of truth to this, I’d say.

This is the Givenchy Fushcia Irresistable lipstick, the Japonesque blush, and a bit of playing around with the Kat Von D Monarch palette.

Floral leggings (thrifted), Banana Republic trench (thrifted), Loslandifen pumps (eBay), Lands End turtleneck (thrifted), Mulberry Roxanne bag (thrifted), Pearls of Joy 10mm studs. On the nails: Essie polish in Naughty Nautical.

Category: fashion

details: bold structure at Rosie Assoulin Resort 2014

the floral print