With his girls Debbie Bancroft, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès, and Lorraine Bracco perched in the front row, Douglas Hannant sent out a tenth-anniversary collection full of expensive-looking little skirt suits and endlessly bejeweled evening confections that appeal to women of a certain zip code—and upon which he s built his label. Taking the Renaissance as an inspiration, the designer inserted corsetry laces in the side seams of a fitted velvet jacket and at the back of a strapless gown. Cocktail dresses in metallic tweed came with puffed poet s sleeves or a tucked ruffle at the hem. And tiny silk Fortuny pleats cascaded from a ruff accented with a contrasting velvet bow.
Backstage, the designer explained that the theme stopped at the silhouette, which was lean and modern. "It s time to be sexy again," he said. And so, for good measure, he tossed in a couple of flirty flapper dresses—one in tiers of gold chain fringe, another in black ostrich feathers—and a sequin tunic that in its brevity channeled Edie Sedgwick more than the Mona Lisa. These last had a freshness that, a decade in, suggest Hannant sees the value in wooing a younger social set.
