Emilia Wickstead is arguably one of the busiest London-based designers at the moment. Last weekend, Harriet Sperling walked down the aisle wearing a bespoke lace gown by the New Zealand-born designer to marry Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne. This weekend, she is traveling to Monaco before heading off to Boston next Wednesday for an event.
In the middle of all the royal buzz, Wickstead is already looking ahead with a new resort collection, inspired by American postwar abstractionist Helen Frankenthaler, inventor of the “soak-stain” technique, which involved pouring thinned paint directly onto unprimed canvas.
A picture of Frankenthaler lying on one of her canvases in a pencil skirt and blouse has been on Wickstead’s mood board for 15 years. The influence is less about literal references and more about the mood of the look book images and a sense of postwar optimism.
“Obviously, it wasn’t going to be like a painted canvas,” she said. “I was looking at fabrications. I liked those kinds of purple, soft blue tones, and that very much is apparent throughout the collection.”
Her signature sculpted gowns and long column dresses dotted with painterly florals on cloqué, silk shantung, and printed taffeta faille were still central to the lineup, but they were balanced by a growing separates offering that experimented with sequins, tweeds, wool checks, and a ’90s minimalist aesthetic, seen in “Love Story.”
Despite her public image as a go-to for big occasions, the designer was focused on ensuring there was something for every woman in the collection.
That belief is reflected in the brand’s long-running American trunk-show circuit, where she is constantly engaging with women of different ages, body types and backgrounds, a business that now accounts for 75 percent of its revenue.
