Natalie Martin and Lulu de Kwiatkowski Collaboration Is Color-Soaked Resortwear at Its Best
Los Angeles fashion designer Natalie Martin and Bahamas-based textile designer Lulu de Kwiatkowski have collaborated on a sun-soaked clothing collection just in time for spring break travels.
NM x Lulu DK brings de Kwiatkowski’s Caribbean-inspired textiles to graphic seaglass stripe dresses, sheer shirts, sarongs, caftans, shorts and quilted vests in cotton, silk and chiffon, available beginning Sunday on Martin’s website and at select retailers from $150 to $498.
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Aussie transplant Martin started her label in 2011, inspired by childhood vacations in Bali. Her breezy Balinese boho block print Fiore maxidresses, Iris peasant tops and drawstring Jasper shorts are the unofficial uniform of ease in Los Angeles and beyond, with Gwyneth Paltrow, Busy Philipps, Rihanna, January Jones, Kristen Bell and many more in her fan club.
A New York native and graduate of Parsons the New School of Design, de Kwiatkowski is known for her colorful fabrics, kaleidoscopic collages and paintings, and for bringing her bohemian lifestyle to interiors and to her 2008 visual diary, “Lulu.”
She and Martin met when de Kwiatkowski lived in Los Angeles in the early 2000s and they became fast friends.
“We both kind of watched each other grow in our years in L.A. and there’s always been a mutual love for color and laid-back style that seems quite effortless,” said de Kwiatkowski, zooming in from her home in the Bahamas with Martin joining from L.A.
“In the Bahamas, you just want to throw things on quickly and look great and presentable. And I wear a lot of Natalie’s things in a really casual way. But my mother-in-law, who’s 93 and still beautiful, tall and elegant, puts on jewelry with them and looks kind of dressed up.…It’s really nice to have a beach dress that can also be an evening dress.”
“Her use of color especially, and colors you wouldn’t think of together, in her paintings, in her prints, and even in the shell work now, it’s just incredible,” said Martin. “The prints we ended up using really spoke to me…geometric watercolors that almost look like a stained-glass window or sea glass.”
“It’s almost like a graphic David Hicks concept, or sailboats I’d see as a child growing up in Quogue in the 1970s….I also grew up wearing Lacoste shirts with thick stripes. So all that mixed with my mom’s big floral wallpapers and patterns everywhere became who I was,” said de Kwiatkowski.
“I wanted the colors to be as close as possible to the original…and they’ve got a real gradient and watercolor effect to them,” said Martin. “It was tricky, but I think we got really close, and I’m really happy with the results.”
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