When they launched their womenswear collection two years ago, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright set out to re-create American classics, but with a luxe, urban sensibility. Since then, they ve proven themselves as accomplished tailors with a hip factor that lands starlets like Kate Bosworth and Amanda Peet in their front row. (It doesn t hurt, of course, to have one of the world s top makeup artists, Gucci Westman, for a wife and collaborator, as Neville does.) For Spring, he and Wainwright polished things up a notch without veering too far from their roots, showing an update on the safari jacket paired with tapering pants, a mod-look black shirt worn with high-waisted white tuxedo trousers, and a skinny, boy-for-girl waistcoat that topped a pair of sharp, cropped slacks.
Their starting point—"late-sixties and early-seventies James Bond," Wainwright said backstage—added a dose of sex appeal to the collection, most obviously in the form of an Ursula Andress-worthy bikini and an equally revealing leotard. If the designers misstepped, it was with dresses. Familiar shapes like a floaty trapeze frock and a baby-doll smock lacked the subtle subversiveness of the duo s more androgynous looks. Still, there were plenty of pieces for the girl who likes her basics with a toughened-up edge.
