Emilia Wickstead is a bookworm, and once she finds a subject, she digs deep.
This season she doted on the work and life of Gisèle Freund, a German French photographer and photojournalist who captured intellectuals such as Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp in colored portraits.
Freund favored tints of red in her photography that the designer borrowed and expanded with her own color story of yellows, greens, blues and pinks found in Surrealist art — another fascination of Wickstead’s.
She had clever effects such as blurring the floral print; dresses with bare sides; charming polos with fringe collars; suits with three-quarter shorts, and square button-on ties that were a nod to Freund’s muses, who were often photographed in formalwear.
Wickstead captured two sides to women — the part they are to the world and the one they are privately. She referenced Eva Perón, otherwise known as Evita, who was photographed by Freund in a glamorous black dress, but in her actual day-to-day life, she would often opt for workwear.
“Intellectual dressing for me means when you can dress in a way that makes you feel confident and strong,” said the designer, who incorporated pockets into her pieces.
“Pioneers need pockets to put things into,” added Wickstead, whose own pocket was full of sunshine and tissues — but whose show could’ve done with some of the bad-ass attitude of Freund and her subjects.
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