This week, our shop mannequin quinn (named for obvious reasons) wears a pink ski jacket by french designer jean-charles de castelbajac over a knitted black evening gown by famed italian shoemaker (but also (slightly less-famed) clothesmaker) salvatore ferragamo.
The dress (which I think is pretty special), was the starting point for this week's outfit. It's full length, made from an unexpectedly weighty knit fabric, and has a shallow, curved neckline but a dramatic, open back.
I was prompted to buy it partly because our friend nicole schoen had mentioned needing to find an evening dress for an event later in the year, and specifically that it needed to be full-length. To be honest though, this was more or less an excuse, as I'd seen the dress months prior and been really tempted to buy it (it's incredible, frankly it's one of those cases where its beauty doesn't quite come across in pictures) but couldn't quite justify the purchase. In the end, by the time I'd received the dress and put it in the shop, nicole had already found something to wear to the event. But! She tried it on, was kind enough to model it in a couple of pictures (and even to wear the ski jacket, which we'll get to in a moment), and I think felt strongly enough about the dress that, if asked, she would endorse it:
Now as to the ski jacket, I approached its selection from two angles. The first is the slightly cynical question 'what will be eye-catching when people look into the shop from the street?' To which one obvious answer is "the puffy, bright pink ski jacket". But I also approached it from a practical point of view. It's winter here in australia, and I tried to imagine, if you were to wear this dress to a gala or a ball or a dinner or an exhibition opening or a show or the movies, or for that matter to have coffee with a friend on a crisp sunday morning, or to walk your dog, or to buy groceries, or to sign legal papers, you might want something striking but warm to wear over the top. And also something that, once you got inside (presuming it was an indoor activity), you could easily take off and not overheat. And finally on a purely visual level, I found both the colour combination (pink and black), and proportions (cropped, and bloody long) satisfying.
You might notice in the picture above that in addition to the bright pink ski jacket mentioned, there is also what appears to be (and indeed, is) a bright yellow version. This isn't some kind of digital trickery (it would be foolish for me to do this), and is in fact because I found the same jacket in a yellow colour as well as the pink version and it seemed to me sensible to advertise the fact that I have a yellow one for sale at the same time that I am writing about the pink one.
I will say that I think the pink one is the one I prefer, but obviously they are both really good and are also really good examples of jean-charles de castelbajac's playful approach to design. The bold colours are an obvious starting point, but I'd also point to the very cute lil ski patches that have been added to each sleeve.
In any event, that's what quinn is wearing this week. All three items are up on the website and if you'd like to you can look at the dress in more detail
here, the pink ski jacket
here, and the yellow ski jacket
here.
