Perfect is so overrated. "I love it when there s something a little bit wrong," said Alessandra Rich of a Fall collection that she dubbed Bad Reputation.
The designer s mix of well-intentioned chic meets girl-gone-bad came through in big bows, duchesse silk, taffeta, and a prim georgette top-half of a dress with a transparent black skirt in Chantilly lace. That fabric is a big Rich signature, and this season she used it to walk on the wild side, working it in layers, patchworks, panels, and inserts, or simply as a long, front-slit overskirt veiling a negligee miniskirt. "Not only is lace very feminine, but I love that you look at it once, then you realize you don t understand, so you have to look again," she noted. Elsewhere in the collection, she created a psychedelic vibe in bold swathes of purple and gold on white stretch cady.
Rich s silhouette, like the designer herself, is long and lean. This time she reined in her palette mainly to black and white to focus on exploring asymmetry and an amped-up mix of fabrics—sometimes as many as fourteen on a single dress. Touches of marabou and sparkle rounded out the story: The cheekiest number had a see-through bodice with strategically placed discs of firework embroidery over the breasts. "She s definitely a party girl, but she doesn t think in terms of occasions," Rich said, describing her muse. "She doesn t care about a bad reputation. She just wants to have fun."
