Fresh, fashionable maturity
In fashion, 24 is an embryonic age when budding designers are scraping by, learning their trade, and still looking for gainful employment. Which is why it's unusual to see a designer like Wes Gordon come out of school and immediately start designing universally adored collections of sophisticated, well-tailored separates. Gordon will be at Saks Fifth Avenue in Boston on Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for a trunk show.
"Coming out of a recession, people are redefining how they shop," Gordon said on the phone last week from San Francisco. "Women are looking for something that's undeniably special if they're going to spend the money. It has to stand the test of time, it has to make them look beautiful, and it has to look feminine and cool at the same time."
Gordon describes his customer as both a sophisticated 20 year old -- and her mother. He fully confesses that his inspiration comes from 1960s celluloid ingenues such as Catherine Deneuve and Charlotte Rampling.
"There's something about these beautiful, sexy, but elegant French women that really shaped the collection," he says. "They really inspired the colors and the fabrics when we were putting the collection together."
He attributes his pristinely tailored jackets to his London schooling. The American Gordon went out of his way to attend Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London cq after reading that fashion icons such as Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Hussein Chalayan had all attended.
"My passion is tailoring," he says. "Our jackets and coats are what we do best. There's so much attention and love put into a men's jacket, and that's ignored in women's wear. We're trying to take a little bit of that focus and attention to detail and apply it women's clothes."
Contributors
Hayley Kaufman is editor of the Style section.
Rachel Raczka (@rachelraczka) is the lifestyle producer for Boston.com.
