Catherine Malandrino Keeps Spanning the Globe
By Jenny Bailly
Photos by: Visko Hatfield
NEW YORK, Sep 21, 2002/ FW/ --- She's drawn inspiration from the Deep South and the
American West, but designer Catherine Malandrino can’t stop wandering.
This season the French designer strayed even farther from her Harlem home-away-from-home.
And considering the remaining U.S. locales Malandrino could have tapped, the designer wisely
steered her collection toward Morocco, not the Midwest.
Under the vaulted stone portico of the West Side's Boat Basin strode models garbed in
pieces hewn from light linens and silks in dusty shades like moss and blush.
The wayward pigeons fluttering around the Hudson River-side runway were less fashionably
attired.
Pants proliferated, ranging from wearable, well-cut wide-leg looks in linen, silk and
jersey, to more industrial incarnations with thick gold zippers, to super-fly silky dance
pants cinched from the knee down.
Classically tailored pieces – equally suited for city sidewalks and desert sands -
included a sharp beige trench with mother-of-pearl buttons and short top-stitched jackets.
Chiffon cut-out tops and cowl-neck dresses were sheer and elegant, as were embroidered
silk blousons and tunics.
Wave-hemmed jersey skirts and a wrap mini-skirt dress were a bit more casual,
while pieced together cotton panels worked better on pants than on a halter dress.
Oversized, distressed leather doctor's bags, chunky Stephen Dweck jewelry, anklet socks
and stilettos with gold-tassled laces completed the looks.
Fellow Frenchwoman Odile Gilbert tapped into the '80s feel of some of the pieces,
teasing the models’ locks to the max in her version of an homage to glam rock.
After creating small curls, Gilbert used only her hands - not a drop of product -
to engineer those wild halos.
MAC makeup artist Gordon Espinet went with straight street makeup to balance out those
big do’s.
"It speaks to the individual beauty of each girl, and not me trying to turn them
into something the same," he explained.
The mouth was the focal point, rosied up with MAC's Plumful lipstick, and skin was made
perfectly even with Studio Tech -- "it's skin in a tube," says Espinet of the naturally
matte foundation.
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