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February 26, 2008 11:13 pm
Hot from Mulberry in London (where he turned the company into a smash hit with the Roxanne bag and its many sisters), Stuart Vevers landed at Loewe in Madrid on January 3. Seven frantic weeks later, he was presiding over his first presentation of clothes, furs, bags, and accessories at the Opéra Comique in Paris on Tuesday evening. "We designed every outfit as a total look. There’s 19 of them here," he said, gesturing at the lineup of mannequins. "Actually, there should’ve been 20, but one dress died overnight." "Spanish" is how Vevers described the feeling behind a heavily embroidered black lace dress. "I found my way into it by thinking of Paloma Picasso and Pedro Almodóvar’s films," he said. It’s a long way from Shoreditch—his usual stamping ground—to the home of traditional high-spec Spanish leather goods, but Vevers arrived with a long string of credentials (including posts as handbag designer at Givenchy and Louis Vuitton) and an equally lively conga line of expert British friends to help out. His all-important first collection of bags is a glossy but playful mix of soft "noble exotic" skins and funny details such as oversized yellow plastic padlocks and painted polka dots. One of the totes is hand-painted in an abstract animal-spot design by Fleet Bigwood (he collaborates with Giles Deacon, among others), who also printed a multilayered chiffon dress and an accordion-pleat silk skirt. The jewelry—metal bows and huge, chunky seventies-style neckpieces made of crystal and, as Vevers pointed out with a grin, "real nuts and bolts"—is by another London mate, Katie Hillier.
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