Lisi Herrebrugh and Rushemy Botter have been plumbing the ocean depths for inspiration ever since they took over as artistic directors of Nina Ricci in 2018. For their pre-fall collection, they switched perspective, raising their eyes to the sky.
Taking their cue from the French brand’s bestselling fragrance, L’Air du Temps, and its swirling bottle design, the designers homed in on the technical aspects of extreme windsports such as skydiving and kite surfing.
Elements of kites and parachutes were incorporated into suit jackets, which contrasted classic tailoring checks with technical fabrics in colorful graphics borrowed from windsurf sails. Fans of convertible clothing, they gave their trousers full-length zips that released the fabric into fluttering panels.
Photographs of parachutes, taken from above, inspired the blobby color stains on a mohair sweater. Dresses came with loose backs that billow when you walk.
“We were experimenting a lot on the body and in movement, so we have been running, walking — we had a lot of fun creating the garments with the team,” Herrebrugh said.
The look book images capture models in various stances of levitation. “What we try to capture there is this moment when a person is unbalanced, this awkward moment almost,” Botter explained. What better way to describe the spirit of the times?
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