Beau Monde: The name of L Wren Scott s Spring collection was a reference to beautiful people in the heyday of the French Riviera. But by the designer s own admission, the women who dressed for lunch at the Hotel du Cap didn t figure quite so literally. You saw the reference here and there in the sunny yellows and sky blues, the candy stripe on a high-neck blouse or the lining of a coat, and in soft Gatsby-esque dresses, a continuation of Scott s experiments with a looser silhouette—but really it was more a feeling. The golden era meant a cranked-up glamour with high-shine sequins and major jewels ("Everything is a bit sparkly," Scott said), but also a luxurious sense of ease. For the latter, look no further than a dusty-hued shirtdress gown worn with rolled sleeves and Scott s jaunty disk-shaped straw chapeau niçois. These mixed it up with her signatures. (Fans of the headmistress dress will find a new va-va-voom version, now ruched and in Valentine s Day red.)
But ultimately, the result felt a bit more all over the map from look to look than the designer s usual finely tuned composition. Scott s beau monde could easily refer to the women who wear her clothes, whether Daphne Guinness and Ellen Barkin, both at today s show, or the woman who clicks to buy on Net-a-Porter. For all her flourishes, Scott is a pragmatist and her clientele serves as her true muse. When the collection is pulled out in pieces, they ll be a typically happy group. As for her new line of bags, which debuted last season, there weren t many on the runway. But Scott wanted to see them elsewhere, tucked under the long tables that seated the lunching editors at Milk Gallery. "If I see them coming through the front door," she said, "I know it s a good sign."
