Marina Moscone (Q3298)
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Marina Moscone is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Marina Moscone |
Marina Moscone is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Marina Moscone was after “something softer” for spring. “Probably motherhood helps with that,” added the designer as her parents tended to her adorable infant son. Soft and light as a breath of air were sheer overdresses with charmingly scalloped lettuce edges, the result of their bias construction. These over sheaths were simple, chic, and sort of genius: Pop one on and you could instantly create a new look. In the lookbook, one of them was layered over a heavy satin dress (available in a luxe pearl gray or caviar) with sleeves that become a capelet at the back. Moscone applied her signature twisted looks to the straps on sleeveless frocks. Foulards inspired the side-tied double-sided polka dot column (red dots on navy lined with red dots) that looked as simple as a scarf wrapped on the body; of course the construction was more complicated than it appeared.Dots were also the basis of a new technique the designer engineered for fall. Starting with polka print laid flat, Moscone and team “joined four points together by embroidery to create a four-point flower; it’s our new version of smocking,” she said. She applied this variously; in one case a sheer fabric was layered over the smocking and then a bead was added in the center of the flower; in another, a panel of the smocked fabric was suspended on a sheer dress body.Shine satins for evening gave way to more matte fabrics for day, but texture was still in play. The designer embraced imperfection with raw-edged cotton jacquard styles, asymmetrically applied pleats, and a perma-crinkle created through a bonding process. This last material was used for a pair of parachute pants that Moscone described as “soft utility.” Soft or hard, women need clothes that work for them. Moscone’s preference for easy-to-wear column shapes makes getting dressed uncomplicated. As special and impressive as the smocked looks were, florals can lose their bloom. In contrast, the monochrome designs (and that double polka dot look) had a forever quality to them.
9 September 2024
Marina Moscone, who said she was in a “nesting” mood, brought things closer to home for fall, choosing to photograph the lookbook in her studio. That decision, she explained on a walk-through, came from thinking about the trajectory of ideas from conception to execution, or “how research is born in a place and evolves from there.” The result was a sort of BTS glimpse into the place where Moscone’s magic happens.The clothes themselves carried a sense of interiority. A double-faced cashmere coat in deep navy swaddled the body and an hirsute sherpa alpaca would be sure to warm it. Softening the lines of a neatly tailored pant suit were cocooning cape sleeves. Other takes on this theme included boudoir-inspired looks like a slip dress with deconstructed knit details at the neckline that allowed room for imperfection, and a column in palest pink featuring what Moscone described as “gestural” draping. This frock, with its vaguely ’30s air, wouldn’t look out of place in the Visibility section of “Women Dressing Women” at the Costume Institute.In contrast to Moscone’s past two spring collections, which included volume play and prints, fall was reflective and inward. The designer said she aimed to “recontextualize some techniques that I’ve been doing throughout the years in new fabrics and see how the silhouette, reimagined, stands the test of time.” In addition she wanted the clothes to have a “warmer” feel. A series of looks made from silk organza rolled into bias tubes kept things from feeling too staid. These more “out there” pieces, that combined the organic spikiness of a sea anemone with the jazzy movement of a flapper dress, were full of movement and fun. Moscone followed that thread of an idea with super-luxe knits that released into soft fluffy fringe at the hem and brought the collection back around to a cozy place.
9 February 2024
A 200-year-old water-nymph sculpture titledSabrinawas defaced by children running rampant with blue crayons on Easter weekend this year. While the world balked, Marina Moscone thought it was kind of beautiful, actually. She kept the picture of the scribbled-on Sabrina on her phone and returned to it, thinking of Cy Twombly’s works on paper and Liam Lee’s felted chairs. It provided the inspiration for her spring 2024 collection, titled Coloring Outside the Lines.Moscone’s clothes aren’t ever messy—clean linesis probably the most common phrase people use to describe her work—but she channeled her graffiti inspiration into a scribble-dot print, high-tension embroidery on slip dresses, and bias-cut chiffon ruffles. It still felt artistic, but overall the mood this season was playful, maybe even a little whimsical. Silk twill pajama lounge sets and Moscone’s signature twist capelet were printed with little daisies on a British racing green backdrop. There was still plenty of structure, as evidenced in the super-cinched Basque blazer, which had an even more exaggerated waist-to-hip ratio this season.Even when Moscone is at play, she’s still precise. Nowhere was this clearer than in the U-neck sheath dress with abstract resin appliqués. Every single teardrop-shaped blob was molded in a custom cast.
8 September 2023
If there is one item you would not expect to find in a Marina Moscone collection, it’s booty shorts. The designer reliably offers sharp, basque tailoring in gorgeous heavy wools and crisp shirting, but raw-edged short-shorts are a departure from her artistic and largely covered aesthetic. And yet they feature heavily in the fall 2023 lookbook; no pants to be found. “I felt this freer, risk taking impulse,” Moscone said. “The MM woman, she also dresses in other ways. This sexier, siren-y influence came from that a little bit.”Alongside the shorts, some of the garments have revealing, on-trend sheer panels, low necklines or abridged hemlines. Black, gray, and white dominate the color palette, but flashes of hibiscus, fuchsia, and bubblegum make their presence known. The bralettes and mini dresses are edgier than Moscone has gone before. “She’s not wearing a shirt and trousers everyday,” Moscone said of her customer. “In this vein and sensibility, she has other ways of dressing.”Still, the coolest parts of Moscone’s line are the fabrications. Seriously, it’s compelling to hear the designer discuss the tension between the silk georgette that creates the sheer panels with the heavier opaque fabric between, and the process of creating the patterns in-house. The standout piece for fall is an ivory dress covered with threaded embroidery that makes it look like a giant loofah. “Every single thread is embroidered one by one,” Moscone said. You can get teensy shorts anywhere, but good luck finding this.
13 February 2023
Change is in the air at Marina Moscone. The designer is walking me through her spring collection when she holds up a pale pink tunic with an assemblage of pearly beads at the chest. “For six years, I would have called this a top. It’s a dress now,” Moscone says and then laughs (for the record, it’s styled over pants in the lookbook). Moscone designs clothes that appeal to modest fashion plates with an artful eye, and though her hemlines are getting shorter, and she’s introducing categories like shoes and home goods, her target audience hasn’t shifted.This season, she went a little bit more overtly extravagant than her traditional fare. Her references include the Belle Epoque era, Fortuny pleats, and the work of 1980s sculptor Arch Connelly. The silhouettes sit closer to the body, and some have long slits or short skirts. Dare I say they’re sexy.The textiles show Moscone’s attention to detail. Another pink midi dress is made of slightly uneven pleats, arranged against the grain. The actual silhouette is rather wearable, but the texture elevates it. Another key fabric is a water-resistant moiré, which appears not only on Moscone’s signature twist capelet, but also as a full-length puffer coat filled with recycled down. A sheer white three-piece skirt, top, and hot pants set is a standout. Made in an irregularly pleated silk organza hand-stamped with a pink flower, it has a delicately crinkled effect, almost like a nightgown.This season Moscone is producing every garment that appears in the lookbook (save for the vintage brown fur coat from her personal collection). It’s a tight edit that will all eventually be shoppable. And though the clothes feel special (see: the labor-intensive organza), Moscone approaches even her occasion wear with a practical eye. “My goal is always to make clothes that can be open to that interpretation,” she says. “We have clients who read the collection as evening, and others, like me, who see it as day.” Something for everybody, except for perhaps the Y2K enthusiasts.
8 September 2022
Instead of thinking about investment dressing, Marina Moscone wants you to consider treasure dressing. That is, buying clothes that are well-made and practical, but also have a sense of wonder and whimsy about them—a special detail that elevates, say, your most-worn blazer to a blazer you couldn’t bear to part with. Fittingly, Moscone’s muse for pre-fall is a sea nymph who’s been hunting for treasure. But before you jump to Ariel and her thingamabobs, the clothes in this collection are more sophisticated and cerebral than the Disney princess.Moscone is generally known as a purist who favors silhouettes that hang away from the body, creating a tension between the masculine and feminine. Not this season. Though she’s been challenging this perception in many of her recent collections—see resort 2022’s mushroom-bedecked overcoat with chartreuse fur trim—Moscone is introducing more “siren-y and sexy” silhouettes for pre-fall. Blazers with nipped waists, cut-out slinky black dresses, and ruched and smocked dresses and shirts delicately hug the body. “It’s new for us, but it feels very right,” Moscone says. “It’s also because of the time we’re in. We’re ready to emerge and look forward and feel good.”As Moscone points out, her details are anything but minimal. Her textiles are always worth discussing, and this season she wanted to continue the shipwrecked, well-worn theme by creating soft taffetas and silk wools with an ethereal effect. The black boyfriend blazer—a standard piece for the brand—is embellished with found metal objects Moscone has collected over the years. Spiral sleeves feature in three looks and are evocative of the American sculptor Richard Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty.” This imagery of wrapping is further represented in the paneled skirts, tunics, and tops that can be unbuttoned to create a carwash effect, a slip dress with slashed, asymmetrical skirt, and a draped cape dress in white and seafoam green. Whether the inspiration comes directly from seashells, whirlpools, or waves doesn’t matter: the movement is beautiful.It’s impressive that Moscone has created a collection that is clearly influenced by the sea, but doesn’t feel remotely beachy. Instead, the clothes feel ready to be worn by a gallerist showing off the Ed Weston photos that Moscone referenced in her collection notes. The move towards siren silhouettes is a break in form that feels like an evolution.
14 January 2022
How will the pandemic change fashion? Look no further than Marina Moscone’s new resort lineup for a glimpse of the pent-up creativity and exuberance designers are unleashing this year. Like most of her collections, Moscone’s resort lineup opens with her signature curvy tailoring, but where fall 2020’s onyx jacket reads minimal and luxe, the chocolate suit here comes with a surprising flash of acid-y chartreuse silk. Peer closer, and you’ll notice the plissé top comes with a kinky detail: a built-in choker that hooks around the neck.Things only get bolder from there: A tapestry coat scribbled with mushrooms, flowers, and snakes is trimmed with fluffy green Mongolian lamb; black tunics and flares are inset with giant lightning bolts; sporty knit sets are cinched with XXL metal belts wrapped in upcycled mink; and a bleach-splattered satin dress is finished with cherry silk twisted through a grommeted hem. It’s an idiosyncratic detail you won’t see elsewhere, one Moscone likely came up with through her art-forward, hands-on process. Those bleach spots were the result of trial and error; bleaching the indigo silk turned it orange, for instance, while a peridot version came with hits of saffron.Moscone’s moodboard was a trip: Photos of David Bowie and Shelley Duvall mingled with oxidized steel works by Carol Bode, Giuseppe Archimboldo’s surrealist paintings of human heads made of fungi and fruit (suffice it to say he was not a painter this writer learned about in Renaissance art classes), and Sarah Lucas’s arresting sculptures of twisting female bodies. Lucas’s eye for color inspired Moscone’s high-contrast palette, while her provocative approach to sexuality and culture fortified the designer’s risk-taking side. If there’s ever going to be a time for mushroom coats and dip-dyed neon, isn’t it now?Anyone who considered Moscone a “minimalist” designer will certainly do a double-take here. In the release, she went so far as to call resort “an aesthetic reset” marking a new chapter of “impulse and experimentation” for the brand. That isn’t to say she’s abandoned her simpler tastes entirely; taken apart, those suits and plissé separates could be worn anywhere, any way. Later this year, Moscone will also introduce a seasonless capsule of best-selling essentials on her website, including those hourglass blazers, cropped trousers, and poplin button-downs.
It should give her even more room to freak it in collections to come, hopefully with a newly emboldened customer to match.
17 June 2021
Marina Moscone has always liked the idea of a uniform. She doesn’t wear the same thing every day; it’s more about figuring out the foundation of her style so she can build upon it. For the designer herself that often starts with a shirtdress over trousers, or maybe a curvy suit with flat sandals, and she’ll experiment from there. Pre-fall found her thinking more literally, though, with familiar nods to school uniforms: pleated kilts, rugby shirts, shrunken blazers. Her mood board was pinned with photos of her mother as a schoolgirl in South Africa; Moscone’s grandfather’s professional rugby career inspired the bold striped rugby shirts. She typically spends her summers in Italy with her family, but due to COVID, she hasn’t left New York in a year; understandably, she’s had them on her mind.In another designer’s hands, a reworked kilt or rugby might lean overly trendy, but Moscone’s were reliably artful and elegant. The opening look was a twist on her signature overcoat, now with box pleats at the hem and styled with knee socks and loafers. Other tunics and blazers had plaid panels tacked to the hips, like trompe l’oeil skirts. What you can’t glean from the look book is that those collaged items were all cut from the same material: The olive wool tunic, for instance, was backed with the same emerald and yellow plaid that appears on its “skirt.” Moscone created those double-sided wools in spite of the fact that most people won’t notice their detail on an iPhone—more importantly, it’s the kind of refined touch her customer appreciates.Another detail will be more obvious: the patches and stamped quotes on a blazer and a duvet-like “art coat” in ivory satin. There’s a bird-of-paradise flower, Moscone’s favorite South African bloom; an elephant, symbolizing wisdom and persistence; a honeysuckle rose, which Moscone’s grandmother used to call her; and two portraits of a little boy and girl, Moscone’s parents as kids. The coat is quilted over in places and has scribble-like printing and fringe, as if a child went crazy with a box of art supplies. Moscone hopes it will offer both comfort and uplift—a combination also found in her new crinkly tops and pajama pants, a welcome WFH update.
7 January 2021
Marina Moscone hasn’t left New York since March, something of a first for the designer. COVID-19 travel bans meant she couldn’t go to Italy, where she typically spends the summer visiting her family and working on her collection. As a non-U.S. citizen—Moscone was born and raised in Canada—she was advised against leaving the country in case coming back wasn’t an option. So she stayed in Chelsea with her sister and business partner, Francesca, and kept herself entertained by taking long, aimless walks throughout the city. “It really made me fall in love with New York again,” she said, “even though everyone else was trying to abandon it.” The past six months have certainly divided the “New York tough” from the nonbelievers. Moscone was intrigued by the women she saw on the street and the “pragmatic” way they styled themselves. What will they reach for in 2021, when things will likely feel just as uncertain as they do now?Moscone found herself thinking about the 1960s, when women’s fashion was both artful and quite simple: boxy shifts, crochet knits, tunics worn with cropped pants, trim suits. “These intelligent, pragmatic women need something they can just throw on and go about their day in,” she said, pointing out a casual “exploded” T-shirt in cream granite crepe, cut to the knee with fraying edges and coral ribbed trim. A similar navy T-shirt dress was patchworked with panels of handwoven recycled yarns, a carryover from Moscone’s resort collection, which she made almost entirely on a loom in her apartment. Spring’s standout dress featured more of those panels in shades of pale aqua, blush, and citrine, with over a foot of their unfinished yarns still attached. Cut like an extra-long T-shirt, it was her take on a “post-quarantine” gown: comfortable, yet striking, especially paired with her new plongé leather flats.Moscone was surprised to report that women have been coming to her for even fancier stuff of late. They’re buying her signature heavyweight satin twisted dresses, perhaps in the hope that they’ll soon have somewhere to wear them. Moscone’s update for spring was a slinky jet-black halter dress, shown with a clay ornament she made in her kitchen. Her evening blouse was particularly ingenious: The draped panel around the shoulders is removable, so you can layer it over a slip dress, a camisole, or—Moscone’s suggestion—even a tee.
15 September 2020
When her Italian fabric mills shut down in March, Marina Moscone could have thrown in the towel and skipped the resort season altogether. How could she make a full collection without those gorgeous custom textiles? Instead, she took matters into her own resourceful hands and bought a wooden loom, set it up in her apartment, and got to work. She experimented with a variety of weaving techniques and used leftover cashmere, silk, cotton, and wool yarns to weave dresses and tunics from start to finish. It was a slow, entirely hand-made process that filled most of her days. When she completed a woven panel, she then knitted it into others to become a single, seamless piece; even on a grainy Zoom call, the quality was remarkable. For some looks, she let the yarns unravel from tight weaves into a fringe, and on others, she spliced in bias-cut panels of silk, like a color-blocked ivory and coral sheath.Those dresses were beautiful regardless of current events, but they also captured many of the emotions and limitations we’ve felt over the past few months. They’re some of the only garments we’ve seen (albeit virtually) that accurately reflect the times they were created in. Every loop of yarn reveals the designer’s hand, and in spite of the painstaking craftsmanship, there’s a casualness that feels right for the moment. Moscone’s instincts for humble, “nurturing” materials and low-key shapes will align with her customers’ needs, but the sleek silhouettes avoided the hygge or “elevated loungewear” tropes we’ve seen so much of.Her signature curvy tailoring has a different attitude than those all-woven items; the most interesting looks combined the two. A sculpted black blazer came with a red woven panel—sort of an abbreviated belt—that buttoned into the front or could be removed entirely. Of the two evening dresses she made, the creamy quilted one stood out, cut from leftover satin that Moscone had hand-felted to create the texture. It merged her dual passions for sumptuous materials and handwork, and its squared-off seams inspired her team to cannily name it the “armor dress.”
3 August 2020
Backstage before her show at the Players Club—“backstage” being an art-filled room upstairs in the historic townhouse—Marina Moscone said she’d been thinking about the ’70s. It was a popular reference this week, but you wouldn’t have picked up on it in her clothes. And that’s a good thing. Moscone has never been a referential designer; to her, the decade wasn’t about groovy prints or a particular silhouette, but rather an attitude, a subdued glamour, and a sense of simplicity. She imagined Anjelica Huston and Jane Forth getting ready for a night out, throwing on blazers or bias-cut dresses and not fussing over any of it. Moscone is interested in what the 2020 version of that looks like; suffice it to say, it’s far from the cloyingly retro ’70s-inspired stuff we’ve seen on so many other runways.Her signature tailoring was a good place to start; a great suit is timeless, not evocative of a particular era. Moscone is still feeling elongated, broad-shouldered blazers, this time in jewel-toned velvet and double-face wool with glossy satin lapels. Her hand-draped satin tunics and slips pivoted between past to present too, even if they felt quite familiar at times. This was Moscone’s second show at the Players Club, and to find yourself in similar surroundings seeing similar clothes—right down to the fringed evening gowns—was a bit surprising. But is it so wrong? It’s not realistic for us to expect designers to reinvent themselves every six months, or to retire a well-received silhouette just for the sake of it. In fact, it isn’t just unrealistic, it’s irresponsible. The constant flow of new, new, new is fashion’s most problematic contribution both to the environment and to people.So Moscone recontextualized her “older” pieces for a new customer: men! One guy wore a striped shirtdress and a leopard coat, and the other layered a long turtleneck over a box-pleated skirt. Moscone isn’t expanding into menswear anytime soon, but the message was clear: These are clothes for real life, and great, modern clothes don’t need to be gendered. Also new for fall were the fur coats and frame bags made entirely of vintage or upcycled mink. Moscone said it had been sourced from all over the world, then specially dyed in shades of blush, taupe, and cobalt. The real versus faux fur debate continues to stump Fashion Week showgoers, but designers rarely bring vintage fur into the conversation.
Moscone said she doesn’t pay attention to what everyone else is doing, but her instincts are astute. Figuring out what “conscious luxury” will look like in 2020 is about as modern as it gets.
12 February 2020
Marina Moscone’s brand turns three this year. Perhaps it was premature to call Fall 2019 her “breakthrough,” because the term would be better applied to today’s Spring 2020 show. Staged at The Players Club, a historic social club for actors in Gramercy Park, this was neither an immersive, celeb-studded mega-experience nor a soulless, run-of-the-mill runway show, the two extremes we’ve come across this week. Instead, it was something lovelier in between: a beautiful setting with beautiful clothes, at once intimate and impactful.It’s tempting to label Moscone a minimalist. Some of her pieces look simple—the bias-cut LBD (worn by 90’s model Natane Boudreau); the sleek suits; the oversize striped shirts. Look closer, though, and that stripe wasn’t a printed cotton, but a semi-shiny ribbon jacquard. The satin cummerbund around the waist of a blazer had actually been hand-draped into and affixed to the jacket, an evolution of the twisting and knotting by hand that we’ve seen in Moscone’s dresses. She added that 99 percent of her blazers are now hand-constructed inside, a fact that may not resonate with the average consumer, but changes everything about the fit.Tailoring is central to Moscone’s business, but it wasn’t necessarily the highlight here. As a woman designer, it’s more interesting to see her experiment with femininity and propose new twists on familiar tropes, like evening gowns. The ivory and lilac slip dresses with extra-long threads swishing behind the models prompted a few questions (Will the threads get tangled? What happens if they’re caught in a door?), but they nailed the elegant yet tactile balance Moscone strives for. Every single thread had been painstakingly hand-stitched onto the dress. Couture details like that aren’t unusual for a black-tie dress, of course, but the results are typically a lot fussier than this (think sequins, hand-beading, ornate patterns). Elsewhere, smocked cotton tunics were hand-embroidered with bunches of flowers for a bit of sweetness, and a few dresses came in a marbled print Moscone made in her apartment.No, this isn’t a minimalist label at all; in fact, Moscone calls her approach “meticulous,” with an eye toward timelessness rather than simplicity. “I want these to be clothes you can wear now and in 30 years, with a relationship between material and craft and artistry,” she said. “I think that’s the definition of true luxury—it’s anti-throwaway, anti-gluttony, anti-consumerism.
”Timelessdoesn’t always mean simple. For Moscone, it equates to something so special you’d treasure it forever—and wouldn’t even consider throwing it out.
12 September 2019
Marina Moscone likes to describe her collection as encompassing three pillars: purity of silhouette, femininity, and a sense of artistry. At first glance, the clean lines and restrained palette of her clothes might lead you to connect “purity” with minimalism, but there’s nothing slick or cold about them; even the simplest pieces have a sense of the hand, be it a raw edge, a sculptural curve, or, most compellingly, a gestural twist or drape. The satin cascading down one side of a bustier and the subtle twist at the neckline of a side-slit tunic looked offhand, but came down to a complicated process of hand-sculpting, tucking, and stitching, all done in Moscone’s New York atelier.“Evening tops” in general are a strength for Moscone, from those draped satin blouses to her sculptural curved bustiers—typically in a restrained palette of black, navy, or silver, and always styled with easy trousers and cushioned leather sandals. Those looks will feel familiar to women who have seen Moscone’s recent collections; what felt newer were the sheer blouses and slip dresses in a pastel marble print. It was loosely inspired by Helen Frankenthaler, but each iteration was a Moscone original: She set up a kid’s inflatable pool in her apartment as a makeshift marbling operation, a painstaking process that involves swirling different paints on the surface of a thick, seaweed-based solution. A lacy marbled silk slip dress was especially pretty, shown with a whisper-sheer layer of “tufted” white flowers on top. That’s about as decorative as Moscone gets; the success of her Basque tailoring and more understated separates at premier retailers suggest that plenty of women are on the same page.
7 June 2019
Last September, Marina Moscone’s Spring 2019 presentations at Willem de Kooning’s former apartment and studio got her a lot of buzz. But Fall felt like something of a breakthrough. In a presentation held in The Strand’s Rare Book Room, Moscone said she’d wanted to tell more of a story through her clothes (hence the wall-to-wall books by the world’s greatest authors). It’s taken a few seasons for her to get here—let’s consider Moscone’s prior collections a prologue of sorts—and one of the biggest steps for the designer was simply getting to know the women who buy her clothes.The casting in her Fall show was an apt reflection of her customer, whom Moscone described as elegant, artful, and—importantly—“mature.” In addition to the diverse range of twentysomething women on her runway, she tapped a few major names who are 40 or over: Missy Rayder wore a gently oversize suit in thick black satin with heeled boots; Natane Boudreau modeled a long-sleeved jersey dress with a ray of draped crimson silk; and Amy Wesson’s look combined a lace slip dress, a textural gray knit, and flat ankle boots. “My clients are women like them and like me,” Moscone said. “We want to be able to find beautiful clothes that have purpose, and where you know there’s a handmade, tactile element.”Texture was a big story, the surprises being a nubby coat made from a repurposed moving blanket and a few knit dresses that had been laboriously hand-embroidered to mimic the same effect. Those pieces were vaguely reminiscent of Phoebe Philo’s Fall 2013 collection for Celine, which kick-started an industry-wide exploration of fluffy, homey materials. Moscone was careful to juxtapose all of that surface treatment with lots of glossy, sculptural satin, seen best on a strapless, nipped-waist LBD with a subtle curve at the hip. Styled with knee-high burgundy boots, it felt like a timely alternative to the cocktail-dress-and-heels combination. Ditto the strapless tunic over trousers, an evolution of similar looks from Spring.There was great texture in the melon corduroy suits, too, which were among the more casual pieces Moscone has done. Still, she insisted much of the line could be worn a variety of ways, day or night (unlike the massive evening gowns she used to design). The sleek, elegant boots helped to underline that; they’ll be popular with retailers, and will speak to women of all ages who are craving something a bit hardier than a stiletto.
10 February 2019
Designers have been getting creative with their show venues this week from Bushwick industrial buildings to upscale restaurants and a few actual homes. Marina Moscone’s presentation was held in Willem de Kooning’s former studio and residence near Union Square, a new address on the fashion calendar. Following a vote from the Landmarks Preservation Commission last fall, the building became an official New York landmark, and this was the first time it had been used for an event of this scale. (Prior to the vote, developers had plans to demolish the building and replace it with offices, which sparked outrage from local preservationists.) Now that it’s protected, Moscone likely won’t be the only designer to host a show there—but it’s always nice to be first.Before seeing the apartment, she’d assumed it would be as colorful and strange as De Kooning’s paintings. Not quite. Instead, we found ourselves in a serene, vaulted space with enormous archways, chipping pastel doors, and giant water lilies painted on the walls. Models breezed through the rooms and gave editors and buyers an up-close look at their raw-edged silk dresses, fluffy hand-knit sheaths, and gently molded Basque tailoring. They felt inherently Marina but were noticeably sleeker and simpler than past collections. The curvy suits were a continuation of Resort 2019, for instance, but hewed closer to the body and were paired with trim, cropped trousers—not wide-leg ones. The puffy, swirling top-stitched cotton of last season also reappeared here in smarter, subtler doses, like on the bodice of a sheath or a slinky bodysuit. In both cases, the threadwork came in bright, primary hues and was cut extra-long, like fringe. Those pieces were definitely the most idiosyncratic in Moscone’s lineup—some might call them straight-up weird—but they lent some verve to an otherwise clean, ultra-refined collection.Moscone said “unconventional women” of the ’60s like Natalie Wood and Penelope Tree were her muses this season. They were instrumental in bringing a new, less-traditional kind of femininity to the era, one that merged glamour with a touch of eccentricity. That idea persists today, perhaps even more so in fashion’s current moment of arty, unselfconscious style. Many of the women in Moscone’s crowd seemed enticed by the multicolored silk dresses in a hand-drawn squiggle print, but the sleek, minimalist pieces had soul, too.
One look combined a strapless ivory tunic, black silk trousers, silver earrings, and flat leather sandals (shoes are a new category for Moscone)—consider it the 2018 version of an LBD and stiletto pumps. A similar look came with a sapphire, raw-edged tunic with a hand-twisted bodice, which Moscone said was a surprisingly tricky detail: It takes serious handwork to get the knot the lay just so.Maybe it’s the heat wave we experienced this week, but those pieces that revealed flashes of skin felt a lot more compelling than the body-obscuring shirtdresses and “exploded” boyfriend blazers. A black slip dress topped with a gently rounded ivory cape occupied a nice middle ground, fluttering delicately as the model walked by. That look also summed up this collection’s biggest strength: flexibility. In past seasons, Moscone offered casual poplin shirts alongside major evening gowns, but most of Spring 2019 could just as easily go low-key or luxe. Her new shoes helped underline that fact: With the leather slides, even the satin gowns felt grounded or you could pair the fluffy hand-knit dress—essentially a tailored blanket!—with the strappy, chunky-heeled sandals and go to a black-tie event.
9 September 2018
Marina Moscone’s Resort mood board was pinned with photos of Mia Farrow and Lee Radziwill, two women who helped define fashion in the ’60s and ’70s. If you re-created their looks today, we have a feeling you wouldn’t get much attention from street style photographers. They wore relatively simple pieces, and had an “undone, casual elegance” about them, as Moscone puts it. It was a different kind of casual dressing, one that doesn’t really exist anymore. Now, it seems you’re either dressed to the nines (for a big event or a photo op) or you’re chilling out in cashmere sweats. Moscone is drawn to the in-between area: polished, but not “fancy” pieces that call for neither jeans nor stilettos.For Resort, that translated to “evening shapes for day.” “No one wants to change for an event after work anymore,” she said. “I think the new elegance is about adding and removing pieces to what you’re wearing, and folding in transparencies.” On that note, she designed slip dresses with completely transparent layers on top; you could feasibly wear the ballet-pink slip dress to the office with a big sweater or blazer, then add the sheer layer and heels for a big night out. (A bonus of the sheer styling trick: It’s virtually seasonless.)Moscone’s signature draped and twisted dresses felt a bit closer to her day-to-night vision. The twists—each impressively done by hand—lent a sarong-like ease to otherwise upscale dresses, including a deep-rose midi dress with a twist in the center and a pastel sheath with raw edges.Her attention to those unfinished details felt new. A common critique in the past was that her clothes felt too rarefied, but those fraying silk threads added a touch of warmth. On the other hand, some of her pieces were finished to the nth degree, including the silk-wool double-breasted jackets with curvy Basque tailoring through the hips. The interiors were done completely by hand, a couture detail that modern-day Farrow and Radziwill types will appreciate.
21 June 2018
Marina Moscone’s Italian heritage is at the heart of her label. Her last collection was all sunset-y Mediterranean colors, caftans, and sandy stripes, with plunging necklines and side slits to reveal flashes of bronzed skin. Fall was remarkably more covered up in comparison (for obvious reasons, given the cooler temperatures). But Moscone is also feeling the need to wrap herself up in soft, generous silhouettes and comforting fabrics. One look actually included a supersoft alpaca blanket, and a few dresses were draped to look like they’d been swathed and knotted. In glossy crepe, the effect was of wearing an oversize shawl, while a shiny black fabric that mimicked leather gave the shape a little more volume.This brand is still young, so Moscone hasn’t quite gotten to the point where any of her pieces are recognizably “her” yet. All of her collections include a cape dress, though, and it’s been a hit at retailers like Forty Five Ten. Fall’s version had the makings of a hero piece. It came in a buttery chestnut crepe, which Moscone referred to as a “non-color,” similar to the olives, taupes, and mauves elsewhere. She lifted the palette from the mountains of Italy, where she vacationed in September as the temperatures began to dip. Those earthy colors worked best on coats with rounded, cocoon-like tailoring, but she took the theme rather literally with an evening top and strapless gown with a fluffy, mossy texture. It will take a bold customer to pull off that dégradé purple and green gown—maybe a gallerist or a particularly experimental party hopper. More realistic were the wood-grain jacquard pieces, which wrapped around the body for a comfortable, but still alternative, evening look.
9 February 2018
Does it make sense to launch an eveningwear label in 2017? On one hand, the red carpet has never been so obsessed over; on the other, women with dollars to spend aren’t necessarily looking for one-and-done gowns. They want a dress they can wear to a black-tie gala or a black-tie–optional wedding (whatever that means), and they don’t want to look stuffy on either occasion. Chances are most fashion-inclined women can relate to this predicament; as Marina Moscone puts it, we want clothes that “fit into a lot of contexts.”The designer, who launched her eponymous label one year ago, addresses that need with sculptural cocktail dresses, relaxed suits, and elevated daywear. After a longtime stint at Peter Som, she’s well versed in all of those categories, but even her fanciest stuff is remarkably flexible. For instance, a handful of floor-length caftans in sunset-striped silk or icy blue satin could be worn three (or more) ways: as a regular gown, with every covered button fastened; reversed as a dramatic, caped-back evening top; or open over a bikini or a pair of jeans. Does Moscone really think her customer will wear a high-grade caftan on the beach? In a word, yes—in fact, that’s how she remembers stylish women dressing in Italy, where she spent summers as a child. “Unlike now, the days felt so long back then,” she said. Those warm memories are no doubt an endless source of inspiration; they informed the “heated” color palette and Riviera stripes, as well. But it’s the collection’s breezy, unencumbered state of mind (real or imagined) that stays with you—how many days until summer 2018?
7 September 2017