While the official opening date of the Frederick Anderson boutique is still days away, his clients are already beating a path to its door. Like Malini Murjani, a designer and consultant, who has dropped by for a second fitting for a dress she plans to wear to her birthday party in Phuket in November: a sliver of golden satin-backed crepe with the effervescence of champagne, its deep décolleté formed from drapes falling from a halter neckline. Anderson and Murjani met, ooh, they can’t exactly recall where or when, but it feels like forever. What they do remember: the clothes of his that she has worn, like the purple dress that she took to a big wedding in India. “What I always say about Frederick,” says Murjani, “is that his clothes are effortless and chic—they’re just so easy to wear. Plus, he has the best laugh.” Says Anderson: “I think a lot of times the conversations I have are me trying to get into my clients’ heads. When we’re laughing, I get a lot of information.”
By now, Murjani is out of the blouse and jeans she arrived in, and into her birthday look-to-be. Anderson gets to work fitting it. Three fittings are, to his mind, enough: initial try-on; alterations check; then if need-be fine tuning. “I’ve had a lot of women come to me and say, ‘fittings always take so long and there’s too many of them,’” he says, “but they shouldn’t. It’s about getting it right by making it feel easy.” He notes that the waist is sitting perfectly, so his attention focuses on the drape at the front, for it to feel sensual without being too inadvertently revealing, and for the silhouette to gently work around her body. Anderson steps back to take it all in. “I don’t think we need to do too much more,” he says. “I want to work with the fabric to give the suggestion of your shape beneath. And…” he breaks off, giving a knowing look to the hem, which floods the floor; it’s the kind of look you give when you understand someone well. “I know you never like your dress to be too long, but to hit the toe.”
Plenty of his customer face time these days is spent debating how to wear sheer: His racks are full of filmy, wispy things which while revealing are also concealing—the dress may be transparent, but it also covers the body, usually top to toe. This sheerness thing is a bit of a tango between him and his women: He likes it from a design POV, while they gravitate towards it because they like the way it looks—a touch of daring that they can decide how far to go with. Anderson is full of suggestions: wear it lined, with teeny shorts, with leggings, with some veiling so the sense of reveal comes through but not that much. “ I was just in Dallas, at Stanley Korshak” he says, “and there were women who were like, ‘oh my God, I never thought about wearing sheer, but why isn’t everything lined?’ Because, I said, we are going to decide what we’re going to do with it. I want us to have that conversation.”