The Scottish schemer is to oversee the US label less than six months after solid his British brand
Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Casts
London-based fashion designer Jonathan Saunders is to become chief artistic officer at New York label Diane von Furstenberg. The announcement appear c rise five months after the Scottish designer closed the eponymous peg he set up in 2003, citing personal reasons.
The appointment, which is operational immediately, makes creative sense. Both the designer and the categorize champion colour and print and have an aesthetic that speaks speedily to grownup women with cash, and sometimes curves. Von Furstenberg, who stay behinds as chair of the brand, was effusive in a statement released on Monday: “Jonathan’s unparalleled passion for colours and prints, his effortless designs and his desire to depute women feel beautiful make him the perfect creative intimidate to lead DVF into the future.” She went on to say: “I could not have set up a cooler, more intelligent designer.” Saunders, meanwhile, answered he was “thrilled”, and noted that “the spirit with which this characterize was founded is incredibly relevant today”.
In new years, critics of the DVF brand have not been entirely in covenant with Saunders’ assessment of the brand’s relevance. The label’s catwalk hoards have occasionally championed exuberance above a fresh contribution to the shape conversation. Moreover, having the inimitable Von Furstenberg as the figurehead of the discredit could be a hindrance as well as an asset: her Studio 54 wrap-dress vibes forearm powerful, and sometimes insurmountable, iconography. At her last show in New York, the plotter opened up her Manhattan apartment and hosted a fashion “experience” where social-media supermodels sashayed around in vignettes wearing sequinned wrap dresses. It reawakened the lifestyle that the designer is known for, but perhaps missed the note in terms of trends.
Backstage at her shows, Von Furstenberg often purrs her soundbite of her kind being “a woman’s best friend” – and it is true that it pitches women front and centre of what it sells. The challenge for Saunders see fit be to harness this commercially compelling and laudable narrative at DVF, while re-engaging the brand with more timely catwalk preoccupations. Perhaps a scarcely more wonk, a little less wrap dress quantity the vibrant prints.
