Lisa Perry has mined the Sixties so thoroughly that it has become her signature, with groovy colors and flower embellishments her known calling cards. For fall, she stepped outside of that trope and examined the Seventies, pointing to as inspiration the heyday of Yves Saint Laurent. While Perry has dipped into the period before, this season was a full-on dive into the decade.
But this wasn’t any sexy Parisian discotheque. Instead Perry showed a tightly edited collection of pieces done with unexpected color combinations — stepping back from her usual primary shades — and easy-to-understand silhouettes.
“It’s still color but it’s something different for me,” the designer noted at a private preview in her sunlit SoHo showroom, adding, “I wanted a vintage feel but still modern.”
Lisa Perry RTW Fall 2019
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Newness came from lush textiles, including a beige knit head-to-toe look; a top and pant with fringe details at the wrist and ankle, and a looser seven-gauge knit top with oversize cable knit detail, done in pastel pink. Another standout was a turtleneck sweater that combined all the secondary colors into one subtle spectrum.
Texture was also on the docket with a yellow calf hair A-line paneled skirt and a few yellow stamped python separates.
Perry has a strong business in dresses and she took a few of those “go-to” core pieces and gave them a spin through the decade, updating her “flyaway dress,” a bestseller, in a short-sleeve, floor-length powder pink version with ruching at the neck, and an elegant floor-length, pleated black dress with short kimono sleeves and gathered darts at the waist. Each were easy silhouettes one could still find in Le Marais today.