Sally LaPointe isn’t aiming to reinvent the wheel for resort.
The designer is riffing on what her customer loves as opposed to forging a new path, and to her, it’s emblematic of her essentialist philosophy. “I did this in 18 looks. The past couple of years, I’ve really tightened the collections up and it helps a lot, being much sharper in your vision and showing only what you believe in,” she said. “I don’t need to do a bunch of fluff. It’s very specific, and I can do it very well, speaking to her.”
If the plumage throughout her collection was any indication, she’s only cutting out “fluff” in the figurative sense. “It’s the LaPointe DNA to a T, I can do all my sparkles, feathers, party dresses,” she said. A top-selling blazer style got a bonded velvet refresh, as did her hot shorts, which she “cannot keep” in stock.
She’s aiming to be a bit more affordable price-wise with a few key pieces, which feature different levels of embroidery — some by hand, others by machine. “You can reach a little bit nicer of a price point and it gets to a different girl,” LaPointe reasoned. On the upper end, a fur-sleeved coat she also brought back from a past season.
Although tight, the collection could’ve felt repetitive, but the color palette brought in a breath of fresh air, from the ultra-pale lilac she calls “cloud” to the toffee hue that seemed to radiate as a double-faced satin blazer.
“When I start, it’s always color-first. I create the palette on a wall and I do them in order of how a look book is going to be,” LaPointe said. “We know the colors that will hit, we know there are colors you take a risk on.”
