As anyone who follows Rosetta Getty knows, the designer kick-starts her creative process each season by focusing on a contemporary artist. Some of Getty’s inspirations are more generative than others; this time out, she found a good pairing with Anna Ostoya, a collage-maker whose work Getty first encountered at MoMA in 2013, and who is now the subject of a solo show at New York gallery Bortolami. There was a natural fit between Ostoya’s way of layering tones and textures together to create architectural effects on her canvases, and Getty’s approach to building looks; meanwhile, Ostoya’s sometimes-jarring palette provided this Getty collection with a welcome jolt.
The emphasis on shades of orange was the first thing you noticed here: The layered orange tones and textures of a bias-cut satin gown worn with a camisole and cropped sweater made for one standout, highlighter-bright look, but the tangerine-hue grid-checked tailoring was a more unexpected hit. Ostoya also cued Getty to construct her patterns in an almost Cubist way—to wit, the button-downs angled to one side, with twisted, dagger-edged collars. In one of the most overt nods to Ostoya’s collaging, Getty conjured a fabulous patchwork trench, color-blocked throughout and featuring 3-D pockets. Elsewhere, there were simpler pleasures, like the shearling-look-alike bouclé outerwear, and perfectly proportioned bootcut trousers, and open-back slip dresses Platonically insouciant. Speaking over the phone from her home in Los Angeles, Getty said that she was particularly galvanized by a 1937 photo of Lee Miller, summering in France; her aim, she explained, was to echo the glamorous carelessness immortalized in the shot.
Miller, as an aside, has been a subject of Ostoya’s. The overall mood of this collection was more formal than that, but it did strike frisky notes that don’t usually make their way into Getty’s serene aesthetic. It was nice to see her at play.
