Nili Lotan spent part of her summer in Marseille. “All I wanted to wear were dresses,” the designer, known for cutting a mean pair of pants, proclaimed earlier this week at a showroom appointment. And so this season Lotan made dresses, lots of them: Simple white slips in barely-there floral crochet yarns, column maxis in black ribbed knits, wide-gauge black crochet T-shirt cover ups. And then, as a compliment, she made the airiest of blouses. Frilly, ruffly, silky, and lacey, all cut ample to billow in the wind and barely caress the body.
What Lotan was getting at for spring is that boho is indeed back. It was Betty Catroux, the Brazilian-born, French fashion muse of Yves Saint Laurent who the designer looked at this season for inspiration. But rather than her style, it was also her lifestyle Lotan was thinking of. The extravagant, jet-setter way of life of the late ’70s. A freewheeling spirit with a luxurious sense of chicness, contradictory as that may sound.
Lotan, as she explained, is fascinated with that very decade and its characters and aesthetics—Fleetwood Mac played as the background at our appointment. Sometimes she leans more into rock ’n’ roll, and others she examines her affection for military aesthetics; this season she landed somewhere in between, somewhere she had not been in recent memory, which brought some freshness to her line—suede blouses and jackets, flared jeans with little suede lacing details, fringed jackets, and striped slacks. There was a sense of ease to this side of Lotan, a softer edge. It was certainly welcome.