“When a woman smiles, then her dress should smile too,” goes the famous quote by Madeleine Vionnet, the inventor of the bias cut. But a beautiful dress can make its wearer smile too, and Rodolfo Paglialunga’s fall collection for Vionnet should do just that for anyone lucky enough to wear one of his creations for the French label. (Increasingly, it’s celebrities on the red carpet who flash a smile in their Vionnets–remember that incredible little black dress Emma Watson wore on her Harry Potter press tour?)

For fall 2011, Vionnet presented its collection on stairs covered in a magic-eye-like pattern of lillies in black and white–a print found on several dresses in the collection, though in glorious technicolor. Electric blue was paired with bright orange, red with lavender. Loosely woven crochet skirts were paired with knit tops, belted with carefully folded obis. Quilted sleeves and a quilted wrap dress added to the textural mix, as did dresses and skirts in stripes of crochet knit alternating with sheer. And a shimmering electric blue lace dress with black paneling on the sides made me break out into a full on toothy grin.

Read more →