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Nanette Lepore – Spring 2012 Review- The Electric Ladies

September 20, 2011 10:40 am

View the full collection in our Photo Gallery.

story by Seth Friedermann
photos by Adrianna Favero

“We kept looking back at the colors from our past, and they just weren’t bright enough!” Nanette Lepore was hungry for color this season. Not just any color, but seared into your memory if you saw the woman for five seconds on the street color. This neon collection crackled with electricity and featured myriad cuts and finishes, which I am becoming tempted to refer to as “Leporeisims.” For example, a double level cascading wave pleat that peeked out from below a waist jacket, done in a thin pink and white lined print. The lapels owed something to the 20th century, and the cut and pleats to the 19th. Mrs. Lepore’s work is always full of such flounces, frills, and flights of fancy, but never even comes remotely close to tipping over into costume. Her designs are not affectations, they are for real women who are serious about having fun. This is, of course, because Mrs. Lepore herself is fun and serious at the same time. She is a passionate and committed woman, whether it is in her work with Save The Garment Center or in her own collections.

Her Spring 2012 collection is perfectly suited for the woman who, around early April, has gone a little mad from the winter and needs to explode in a rage of spring expression. Bright pinks, fiery oranges, and bold blues, mixed with stripes and fascinating multicolored layered fabrics, to create a jolt to the senses.

Bows, and shaped layers of lace added very effective three-dimensional elements to the pieces, which breathed just that much more volume into a collection which was already quite in full voice. There is always a sense of adventure present in Nanette Lepore’s work. She creates designs for the woman who understands that life is what you make it and that there is no such thing as an ordinary moment if you refuse to allow one to happen. It was by far one of Mrs. Lepore’s boldest collections of late and reinforced her stature as one of the top designers working in America today.

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