As she was brainstorming her spring collection, Mira Mikati found herself scrolling through vacation photos, per usual. As one of fashion’s most dedicated travelers, there were thousands of them. Even so, a trend jumped out at her: stripes. Up they cropped in Capri, Santa Margherita, Santa Fe and Palm Springs, where this lookbook was shot in a motel named Les Cactus run by Matthew and Solène Kurtz.
This season, the designer served up stripes in breezy summer knits, in blue or yellow and white with crochet flowers, plus maybe an embroidered straw basket or a crocheted hat to finish the look. The collection is “easy-travel, easy to iron, it goes from beach to night without any effort, all day long,” said Mikati, who road tested a few prototypes in Greece. Those helped with the wind, she noted; they’d also be perfectly suited to fall seasons like this PFW, which hovered around 80°F.
Elsewhere, a flower bustier came to her “as something to wear to music festivals.” Paired with a cardigan, silk pajamas took the idea in a different direction. A bread pouch picked up in San Cristobal de las Casas lent its multicolored tassels to a different kind of stripe. Pants in cotton canvas were tailored inside out and extra-long to pool around the ankles. Cargos might pair with a loose shirt embroidered with love, cactus and mushroom patches, or else a cheesecloth shirt encrusted with flowers. An orange striped marinière embroidered with a Paris metro sign and a macaron was charming. So were a pink suit with daisy-shaped buttons in porcelain and a cardigan with mismatched bands of color. At a time when minimalism reigns supreme, a shot of color and stripes can start to feel like a holiday.