“Easy living,” I wrote in my notes during the middle of Fforme’s presentation. “This is a summer show,” Frances Howie had explained the day before at the brand’s downtown studio, and summer for her meant swimming and surfing in “the most rugged, wild, remote volcanic beaches on the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand,” where she grew up. “I swam and I surfed—that was my whole childhood,” she recalled. “And when I left and moved to London, I ended up in Cornwall because it has a very similar atmosphere.”
It was easy to see the influence—the models with their bare faces and undone hair in uncomplicated clothes that had the ease of T-shirts. Almost all long dresses were hemmed right above the ankle, and the models wore basic braided leather flip-flops (did you know they call them jandals in New Zealand?)—not as a statement of the current luxury flip-flop trend, but simply because that’s what people wear at the beach.
Howie looked to real scuba suits with their bonded seam construction and the strategic seam placements that keep the lines smooth all around and allow the wearer to move more freely. A shell top with an asymmetrical zipper detail and a high-waisted slim skirt made from professional-grade scuba material expanded the visual language at Fforme in a fun and unexpected way. But the most exciting results of her investigations were a pair of liquid-silk dresses with batwing sleeves and a curved seam that swooped across the body from the shoulder to the hips—one in silver and another in royal blue—both with extra-long zipper pulls in the back so that one may dress oneself.
“The people drawn to these places often want to reject something about the city,” Howie added. “So you end up with a group of people who are very free-spirited and doing things their own way; they’re trying to find an alternative way of living.” See, then, the long opening parka with its architectural silhouette that belied the fact that it was as light as the parchment paper from which it took its color (“A silk-cotton cut on the cross-grain!” Howie had enthusiastically explained) or the “hammered gold” halter dress with contrasting inset panels on the bodice, ready for a formal affair with the insouciance of a little beach dress you just threw on. And has there been anything cheekier on a Fforme runway than the light! light! light! knitted sleeveless shorts romper?
That’s not to say that Howie abandoned her tailoring tendencies entirely this season: Look at the grass green suit made from a linen and silk woven fabric with a color saturation so high it almost seemed to glitch in person, or the wrinkly black satin suit with its sleek stovepipe trousers, or even the Dickies workwear-inspired trousers and long shorts made from silk and cotton. A fringed dress was draped from a single piece of fabric, its edges hand-frayed and wrapped around the body as you do a towel after getting out of the ocean. With her second Fforme collection, it’s as if Howie opened all the windows and let the sunshine in.
