Danielle Frankel Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear
Danielle Frankel describes her namesake brand as âa fashion labelâ whose âmedium is bridal,â a minor yet important distinction that indeed manages to capture her creative output. To wit, consider that this season began with the exploration of an ĂŒber down-to-earth fabric: jersey. âThere are a few things that I’ve been wanting to do for forever, one of which is work with Jersey,â she explained in her Midtown showroom. âJersey is a fabric that, I as a person, just live in. I try to live in comfortâbut this has nothing to do with comfortâI just thought [jersey] would visually be very, very new and would perform well.â
And so her super-soft silk jersey, with a hand more akin to suede, was used in a spring-y strapless babydoll-shape top decorated with a small bouquet of metal-cast real flowers, and worn with an ankle-grazing draped skirt that was surely poised to make a beach bride very happy; while a draped goddess gown has subtle lace appliquĂ©s and has the sinuous lines of ancient carved marble sculptures. But it was in Frankelâs application of the fabric on a ballgown with an ultra-dropped-waist, deep-V-shaped gathered skirt whose bodice was layered with a sheer layer of sand-colored lace appliqued with contrasting ivory flowers that the âfashion-firstâ distinction fully hitâit is not a pristine-white dress, but instead hints a deeper melancholy in its unexpected beauty. Surely an emotional rarity in the bridal worldâbut not Danielle Frankelâs.
Even her more âclassic brideâ propositions are pushed to new heights: delicate Lyon floral lace is layered over honeycomb lace on a simple slip; while on another, corded lace was carefully cut into bias-cut strips then pieced back together into a clean, spaghetti-strap ballgown silhouette. âThe other thing from this season is I didnât want to do any pleating,â Frankel added. âWe do a lot of pleating and I wanted to do a new version, so we developed this technique using bias-cut strips that almost read as pleats, but theyâre not.â
Elsewhere, a series of hand-painted gowns in a silk fabric woven with metal fibers evoked both Impressionist paintingsâon a ballgown with a delicately gathered bodice and a skirt painted with abstract dusty pink flowers against a sea of moody blues and greens that gave the illusion that the dress was constructed from paper machĂ©âand romantic whimsyâlike on an easy sheer slip dress painted with falling flowers, and worn over white silk trousers. The thick edges of paint on the lace indeed appeared to be real flower petals flowing all around the model. These twoâalong with another strapless sheer layered number with a smattering of flowers at its bubble hemâare made for âI Doâsâ but god, how great would it be to see them walk the steps of the Metropolitan Museum at this yearâs Met Gala. (The dress code, if you recall, is âThe Garden of Time.â) âI think that weâre challenging ourselves in different ways,â Frankel adds. âI want to give [our customer] what she doesnât know she wants.â