Marchesa continued its tradition of all things girly and utterly glamorous with its Spring 2018 collection, which designers Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman presented at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday.
Showing to an A-list crowd that included Once Upon a Time’s Jennifer Morrison, Nina Dobrev, Victoria Justice, Olivia Culpo, Coca Rocha, Petra Nemcova, Shanina Shaik, and designer Zac Posen, the designers put on a beautiful presentation that met Edwardian England with the Far East.
And the incredible attention-to-detail was apparent in every piece: From layers upon layers of fluffy tulle to breathtaking beading, the pieces in the collection took ‘months and months and months’ to prepare, Craig told Daily Mail Online, with sometimes five different people working on a single dress at a time.
Frilly perfection: Marchesa debuted its Spring 2018 collection at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday
Fiercely femme: The collection is part of ‘a continual thread of a Marchesa dream,’ designer Georgina Chapman told Daily Mail Online, ‘so one season will blend into the next season’
Ladylike dream: Layers of tulle adorned with floral appliqués were party-perfect
‘There’s really hundreds of hours that go into most of the pieces. We make everything in our atelier here in New York, so some of them can take hundreds of hours,’ Craig said. ”These pieces, there can be four, five people stitching at one time. From the inception it’s months and months and months.’
First, they work with sketches. Sometimes there might be four or five different options for a top or skirt, and they try them all out to see which works best. ‘But then they all sort of look good, so it becomes hard,’ Craig said.
‘You never know until you have it in your hands, until you see it, until you feel it. Things change,’ Chapman added.
A team works in New York on sewing the fabric and hand-embroidering the beautiful designs — which is Chapman’s favorite part.
‘Georgina gets into her draping frenzy — that’s the exciting bit, because something that Georgina’s sketched on the board may just change into something completely different and that’s the beauty of the organic process of being able to work in an atelier in New York,’ said Craig.
Haute hero: This particular collection was inspired by Edwardian explorer Aimeé Crocker’s travels
Fab indeed: The designers said they looked to the ‘fabulous’ explorer to influence this collection
Attention to detail: Craig noted that sometimes, up to five people would work on a single dress at a time
Exquisite: Each design begins with sketches, though sometimes there are four or five different ones per piece, and they make them before deciding what works best
She added: ‘Ultimately this collection is very feminine, it’s very Marchesa’
Natural beauties: Make-up, done by Gucci Westman with Kevyn Aucoin Beauty, was simple and minimalist
For this season, the brand didn’t stray from their tried-and-true feminine touches, adding feathers and beads to floral appliqués, stitching metallic embroidery into tulle, layering on the fringe, and tastefully revealing some skin with sheer touches.
‘We see our collection like a storybook, it’s a continual thread of a Marchesa dream. So one season will blend into the next season. We want our pieces to feel timeless,’ Chapman explained.
That being said, this particular collection was inspired by Aimeé Crocker, an Edwardian explorer, and her travels to Japan.
‘We were reading a really fascinating book about an Edwardian woman who was a bit of an explorer, and she traveled all around the world, and she was very fabulous and she was obsessed with the far east, and so we took a bit of that and looked at her travels in Japan,’ Craig said.
Chapman added: ‘So we sort of mixed the ideas. We’ve got touches of the Edwardian, we’ve got touches of the Japanese — with the obis and cherry blossoms — but ultimately this collection is very feminine, it’s very Marchesa.’
Luscious locks: Hair was done by Antonio Corral Calero for Moroccanoil
‘Something that Georgina’s sketched on the board may just change into something completely different and that’s the beauty of the organic process of being able to work in an atelier in New York,’ said Craig
Fashionable family: They added that their kids — they each have two — love coming to their New York atelier
Amazing detail: Close-ups of the dresses taken backstage show incredibly intricate embellishments
Enter the lotus flower ruffles, ombré wisteria, 3D tulle petal cherry blossom embroideries, and obi corset belts. One show-stopper, a pink dress with a huge, fluffy skirt, was a personal favorite — and offered surprises to the even the designers.
‘This big pink dress, I went to pick up earlier and I found three people underneath it,’ Chapman revealed.
What’s more impressive is that the two designers managed to pull off the whole show and send their kids off for a new school year. Craig attributed the ability to pull double-duty to the two women having a ‘great team’ and ‘supportive husbands’, who helped then keep the hectic first weeks of September running smoothly.
‘Our kids, they’re pretty seasoned fashion kids too,’ Craig said, with Chapman adding: ‘They’re like, “Yeah, mom, we got it.”‘
They’re also really excited about what their moms do. Craig’s daughters Delilah and Delphine, and Chapman’s daughter India and son Dashiell, love to come and play at the atelier — and India, who just turned seven, may be ready to follow in her mother’s footsteps: Chapman said she just asked for a mannequin and sewing machine for her birthday.
Star-studded: Georgina Champan and Keren Craig pose with star attendees (left to right: designer Zac Posen, Chapman, Craig, Jennifer Morrison, Coco Rocha)
Front row fab: Lookalikes Nina Dobrev (left) and Victoria Justice (right) were also in attendance