What you cannot see here is that this 1952 collection includes two items—a hoodie and a t-shirt—featuring two magnificently meta Muppet prints of Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear, both wearing pieces from it. Kermie is rocking a shiny down Moncler classic on a fern green background while Fozzie sports the wocka-wocka-wonderful piped polka dot jacket against a complementary caramel.
These fun pieces are highly desirable but also a smidgen surprising because Veronica Leoni always seems as staunchly serious and cerebral as her pedigree at Philo-era Celine and Sander-era Jil suggests. She explained: “I was in the middle of my complicated and conceptual process of design. And I thought we need to bring in something that is going to give us hope, and make us laugh, and remind us about what we had. And I thought these characters were just what we needed to refresh a feeling of childhood and make us feel young again. Disney was just super-fun to work with. They created a little story of Kermit and Fozzie going to Paris for fashion week, but actually it was Paris, Texas, and Miss Piggy was left waiting for them in the wrong place. So we dressed them for fashion week. Fozzie with his banana wearing the polka dot pajama, I actually think is one of my greatest achievements so far! I wanted that drop of irony and fun in a time where fashion seems much less important than we once thought it.”
These Muppet pieces were the warm and fuzzy heart of one half of the dichotomy Leoni swung between in this collection: staying cocooned in homey innocence versus stepping out to seize the moment and meet the challenge of experience. Recycled ripstop bucket hats fringed with feather were mahna-mahna-marvelous median lines between the two, as were the slouchy but element-repelling pajama pieces. Cord or quilted skirts set the foundation for a slew of strong new down jacket designs, sweeping black knits, and a cool kelp cardigan.
As the intro to a certain show once used to go, “it’s time to dress up right.” This collection provided plenty of material for that.
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