>> After last season's wildly successful collection — favored by editors and buyers alike — Rag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright took a chance for Spring 2011. The utilitarian roots were still the same — military-grade fabrics, pictures of Wainwright's father and grandfather in their military uniforms for inspiration — but for the first time, the designers really experimented with color.
The departure from their comfort zone meant chiffons printed with a vacation snapshot Wainwright took on the island of Bequia, use of a mylar-like material, and a harness bra collaboration with lingerie designer Jean Yu (only some will wholesale). Some weren't quite convinced of the new direction — Style.com's Nicole Phelps wrote: "The appeal of this brand has been how strongly tethered to reality it remains, how much it reflects what the cool girls want to look like on their best day. Not enough of this collection met the bar they've set for themselves." But most seemed pleased: WWD deemed the departure "well worth the trip."
Friend of Rag & Bone Jessica Stam sat front row, chatting with Jessica Szohr throughout the show, and RJ Cutler, who worked with the designers on a minidocumentary last season — see the video here — was present, too. The only person missing? Halle Berry, who was tipped at the show, but supposedly her plane landed too late to attend.
>> Jessica Stam has flirted with designing a couple of times — most recently doing 