Lafayette 148 Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear: The Modern Art Collector’s Uniform
“In my head, I always have all these little places and things that I’m obsessed with and it’s just a matter of polling when’s the right moment to use it. With the main seasons I like to bring [the collection inspirations] back to New York. We’ve been doing so much on nature, nature, nature that I wanted to mix it up a little bit. Thinking, ‘What can I do to find nature within homes?’” Lafayette 148 creative director Emily Smith said during the brand’s fall presentation, which drew the likes of Beanie Feldstein, Claire Danes and Cory Michael Smith.
Smith added that one of those places she’s always loved was the Rockefeller Guest House, but she wasn’t sure there was more to the story than it being a beautiful home. However, upon digging into research, she found out the woman who commissioned it was none other than Blanchette Rockefeller, who was a huge American art patron and collector. She ended up becoming Smith’s muse of the season.
More from WWD
Celebrities Front Row at LaQuan Smith Fall 2024 Ready-to-wear: Busta Rhymes, Babyface and More
Celebrities Front Row at Willy Chavarria Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear: Sam Smith, Julia Fox and More
“It started with the architecture and the fact it had this beautiful nature inside, but then we got on the idea of a modern art collector and building a wardrobe for her,” Smith said within the wood paneled walls and midcentury modern-furnished High Line Room of the Standard High Line hotel, which served as the presentation’s ideal setting for “The Collector’s House” collection.
Smith’s codes emphasized simplicity and modernity, with touches of late ‘50s and early ‘60s references. While Rockefeller would host the donors and artists in the Rockefeller Guest House, Smith knows that today’s entertaining at home calls for softer, easier takes on glamour, which she certainly delivered. Case in point: a matte mixed-chrome pailette straight skirt, paired with a lofty split-hem cashmere turtleneck was divine.
Elsewhere, architectural nods could be seen via a jacquard jacket and pencil midi-skirt that showed off the Guest House’s floor plans while a clean, minimalist mock-neck knit tunic with taxi yellow-hued pants and “Madmen” herringbone topcoat recalled the era.
In addition, fringed moments and “falling leaves on the water” prints spoke to the house’s interior Japanese pond with ample woodgrain-inspired textures amplifying the appeal of the simple silhouettes. The motif was translated through a great wood grain fil coupe pant (with a Mod-meets-modern angular cropped wool jacket); locust tree-inspired curled knits; a plissé printed lace skirt, and as a bugle-beaded tree stump hand-sewn onto a black wool and silk dress.
Rich in textures and soft in mood, Smith’s fall collection was a strong display from start to finish.
For more New York Fashion Week reviews, click here.
Launch Gallery: Lafayette 148 Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Best of WWD
