Mary Ping, Spring/Summer 2008

Mary Ping’s Spring/Summer 2008 collection was quietly beautiful and suggests that the short decampment to Paris was beneficial to the designer. Slightly more feminine than her previous work, it showed a number of dresses and circle skirts which conveyed an easy yet researched chic. (Particularly ingenious design-wise were her dual color dresses.)

Yet her conceptual side, which she indulges in with her Slow and Steady Line, was still present, particularly in the details. A beautiful interlaced back and a strategically-placed cut-out explored new erogenous zones, such as the collarbones or the lower ribcage, engaging the viewer in a game of hide and seek, which, combined with a certain primness (underscored by the über-nerdy Sol Moscot eyeglasses), brings forth a more cerebral kind of feminine beauty. Her work conveys a sensuality which is carefully articulated and perhaps even slightly repressed and thus all the more intriguing. Ultimately, it constitutes a respite from the overly trendy and/or overtly sexy clothes out there.

Francesca