According to Serge Azria, Joie's Spring '14 collection was all about celebrating—and elevating—white.
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According to Serge Azria, Joie's Spring '14 collection was all about celebrating—and elevating—white.
According to Serge Azria, Joie's Spring '14 collection was all about celebrating—and elevating—white. "I wanted to make white not so simple," said the contemporary label's creative director and CEO during the presentation, which marked the twelve-year-old brand's second New York fashion week effort. Joie's new lineup was a palette cleanser, offering a host of easy separates and frocks in every tint of Azria's chosen hue. He contrasted a stark white elongated blazer with a romantic pleated silk skirt in soft eggshell. Similarly, a sporty bright white sailing jacket popped against an oatmeal and black striped sweater.
Elsewhere, Azria enriched the shade with varying textures, like eyelet—used for a high-waisted cotton pencil skirt—or slick leather, which looked best as a pair of cropped, flair-calf trousers. The concept was applied to accessories, too—for instance, pointed cream and tan leather flats were laser-treated, causing them to look like they were made from stingray.
Inspired by a recent trip to Ponza, an island off the Amalfi Coast, Azria injected his Spring range with an air of vintage Italiana. One linen dress with a fitted skirt and blousy bodice that revealed just enough of the model's décolleté was simultaneously effortless and va-va-voom. The Mediterranean inspiration also moved Azria to include pops of cerulean and navy. "All of the houses in Ponza were white and the doors were all blue. It looked like a painting!" he recalled. The scene was re-created in his Chelsea show space. He worked indigo into bold stripes, which ran down a three-quarter-length skirt, a billowing short-sleeved blouse, and a structured workwear jacket. An azure brushstroke print on a flippy little jupe was lovely, and a navy drawstring skirt—which was basically a silk, feminine alternative to sweatpants—looked particularly comfortable. Most of the spaghetti-strap and short-sleeved crop tops—while sweet on the models—will be near impossible to wear if you're of normal human proportions. But a bouncy, open-back A-line frock had “summer classic” written all over it.