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subscribe to style file blog via RSSAve Maria Luisa
March 12, 2010 10:42 am
Retailers are always scrambling to find—and buy—the next big thing, but it’s hard to
find a better divining rod than Paris’ Maria Luisa Poumaillou. At her eponymous Parisian stores (and, as of last fall, the Maria Luisa shop in Paris’ revamped Printemps), Poumaillou carries the best and brightest international designers, and has since their Young Turk days. But the editors and designers who gathered last night were celebrating Poumaillou’s own designs for her house collection, begun quietly as a capsule two seasons ago and now launching as a full range. “We wanted to do this collection for a long time, not to compete with the labels we sell, but to offer style for less,” she explained over a glass of prosecco. Separates like loose apron dresses, transparent overskirts, scoop-neck crop tops, and chunky V-neck sweaters shot through with Lurex should integrate seamlessly into her customers’ label-crammed wardrobes. (American shoppers can pick them up at Opening Ceremony in New York and Ron Herman as well as Opening Ceremony in L.A.) But though her designs should grab attention on both sides of the Atlantic, she’s not one for screaming self-promotion. “Red-carpet party dressing is dead,” she pronounced. “I’m so tired of designers telling me I should buy their collections because Rihanna or Lady Gaga wore them.”
tags: Maria Luisa
