“I love roses because they can mean so many things: romance, mystery, sexiness… there’s a lot of subtext there,” Zuhair Murad offered during a showroom preview for fall.
With its rich, somber palette, lush fabrics and intricate embroideries, the lineup unfolded like a sort of fantasy stroll through a secret garden by night. The designer continues to expand his repertoire in tweed, adding rose appliqués in black embroidered leather to jackets, miniskirts and shift tresses with dusky jewel undertones. A black wool coat received the same treatment. Speaking of leather, it was reintegrated into the line this season, for example as black high-waisted, wide-legged trousers.
Ornate workmanship on mixed media gowns in velvet, silk and lace with cut-out details, creeping rose appliqués dense with scarlet sequins, and black numbers ticked out with crystal spider webs pushed this theme to the extreme. Diaphanous capes revealed embroideries so lavish they appeared to defy gravity. But the queen of flowers looked more modern when treated with a lighter touch, for example in black beading on a long-sleeved short white dress. Elsewhere, a bustier with a velvet bodice and a skirt with dévoré blooms, or in deep burgundy jacquard on a black ground, carried a whiff of old Hollywood.
Jersey dresses with leather trim at the neck or waist and an unembellished jacket in black velvet looked, like the leather trousers, well-suited to an era of minimalist dressing and attention to sartorial longevity. In that vein, this season will find Murad expanding his brand of glamour into body-positive—not to mention more accessible—territory with a 13-piece capsule collection for Marina Rinaldi.