Some designers try to romance you. Some refuse to speak. (More fool them, but that’s a story for another time.) Rachel Comey gives you real-talk. At a showroom appointment, she broke down her pre-fall collection into three themes—work travel, beachy escape stuff, and summer events—and then proceeded to dig into the fibers her team developed for each. I’ve been at the review business for a long time, and I can’t remember an occasion when a designer used the term “fibers.” Like her clothes, Comey is down to earth, but she’s also prone to surprise and delight.
Needless to say, most of the fibers in question here were exceedingly lightweight because it’s a hot time of year. For suiting, Comey worked with weavers in India on a speckled linen, and for strappy bare dresses she chose a crinkled cotton silk blend, a crisp taffeta, and a bouncy foam-like tech fabric. As for knits, there were floral intarsia sets and a stretch eyelet, which is an old favorite done in new colorways, for an array of swim shapes. Among the bathing suits, the most novel was a long-sleeved one-piece with a little hem that just about qualified it as a dress—wear it at the pool, wear it on the street.
With an eye to the way her customers really live, she emphasized rugby-weight cotton separates in cool, roomy shapes; athleisure-y color-blocked nylon; and printed ripstop cargo pants along with a matching rain parka. On the accessories front, the crumpled knitted raffia bucket hats were delightful indeed.