Before gathering her thoughts for Resort, Yeohlee Teng paid a visit to the Louis Kahn-designed Esherick House, in Philadelphia. "I don t like using places I haven t been to for inspiration," said the designer in her newish boutique in Manhattan s increasingly fashionable NoMad neighborhood. (The Ace Hotel is next door, and Dover Street Market is just a few blocks away.)
Teng was taken with the Chestnut Hill home s kitchen, designed by Wharton Esherick, whose sister owned the house. Esherick s carved wooden pieces inspired the graphic lines printed on a painterly floral dress with a handkerchief neckline, and his amoebic coffee table helped to inform the curved pockets and hem of a black knee-length skirt.
There was a chic practicality to the collection that was best represented in the minor details. The back and front of a black-and-gray striped tank were cut from the same pattern so that it could be worn either way. (One side had wider stripes than the other.) A crinkle-cotton blouse—called the "Schindler" after the architect Rudolph, who often wore a white shirt—had a freeing hidden zipper up the back. If a piece had pockets, as on the back of a yellow pencil skirt, those pockets were deep, so that they could actually be used.
But while the tiny moments were many, it was a pair of billowy wide-leg trousers in off-white that stole the show. They were worn with a tank made of a highly touchable navy microfiber and a matching blazer trimmed in the same fabric. A tie-able sash was attached to the blazer, cut on the bias to reveal unfinished edges. Teng s skill is in draping and manipulating fabric in such a way that it hangs beautifully without the wearer knowing why or how. There s something pleasing about that kind of discretion.
