When Martin Grant is on form, he can perk up an audience no end. Channeling his considerable experience as a private dressmaker turned ready-to-wear designer, Grant produces clothes that are nicely poised between daintiness and practicality—neither debutante froth nor overblown runway fantasy. His spring collection was triggered, he said, by an artist s smock hanging in his studio. "It was about smocking, gathers, and volumes," he said. "But only vaguely."
He opened with a delicate, forties-feeling pale-pink dress, followed by a curvy rose-colored short jacket over a full, delicately striped knee-length skirt. That was followed by a beautifully simple white linen dress whose gathered bodice clung to the waist and opened into a gentle fullness below—something between innocent peasant and Empress Josephine.
All this ably demonstrated his understanding of summer s lightness and romance. But Grant isn t one to get swept away by a theme. He also wisely developed some of the signature pieces so beloved by his clients (like Lee Radziwill, discreetly watching from the sidelines). Grant s neatly useful coats looked particularly great—for example, a trench with a new trumpet-sleeve detail or a black yoked painter s coat shrugged over a liquid-silver flounced skirt.
Grant s sophisticated nighttime looks demonstrated how thoroughly he s thought about an area many others don t: making an evening dress that is stunning in 3-D. The Empire line and smock idea became raised-waist dresses bloused at the back, handled elegantly in rich silver and platinum fabrics that never turned vulgar. That kind of reality chic explains why Grant is garnering such a loyal following.
