Today marked the return of Lou Dallas to the NYFW runway. After taking a little hiatus, designer Raffaella Hanley brought back her label last summer with a renewed interest in making things that she could actually produce and sell. For fall, Hanley was guided by the materials. “I had 50 fabrics collected from different sources and at one point I was like, ‘Whoa, is this going to work?’” she said inside a small office that doubled as a backstage at the carpet showroom in Tribeca where her show took place. “But I was thinking a little about country pop star singers, and a little of Sid Vicious, when he used to wear a scarf around the leg.”
From Sid, Hanley wrapped little ruffles around the thigh of one of her pairs of signature seamed leggings in hunter green with gray contrast stitching that was paired with a very easy, but very cool long sleeve cotton top with a deep scoop neck and abstract seams throughout. “I love those shirts,” she said. “Putting the lines in just felt very flattering; there was just so much thought put into those seams, how the garments were constructed and how they needed to feel effortless.”
Although her clothes are often patchworked and collaged from many different materials, they have an innate simplicity. Take the opening look, a patchworked suede jacket in shades of coffee brown, pink, and purple paired with a gathered and ruffled mini skirt in shades of red, pink and purple, or a long floral print bias-cut semi-sheer slip dress with red lace trim on the seams that wrapped around the body. Hanley can cut a mean trouser, low slung, tight around the hips and with a straight or flared leg; they looked like they were tailor-made for each model. Two ’70s-ish boho coats were especially covetable; one in green with oversized faux fur trim at the collar and cuffs (in bright green and acid yellow respectively), and another in denim with black and white trim at the collar and lavender trim at the sleeves. It was a collection filled with the things that made Lou Dallas a darling of the cool arty downtown girls, distilled to its best iterations: colorful mesh shirts, pieced together hoodies, and ruffle-y mini dresses ready for a night out.
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