October 6, 2025 |
The Chloé girl is evolving. There’s more to her than boho. For SS26, Chemena Kamali showed she can wear archive florals, draped and swagged into curve caressing, 1950s-inspired dresses. The designer keyed into the innate femininity of the house, going right back to its earliest 1950s silhouettes for inspiration.
The founder Gaby Aghion loved the craft and silhouettes of ’50s couture but wanted Chloé to give women a lighter less formal way to dress so she took the padding, petticoats and boning away. “They had a lightness without losing the element of craft,” said the designer of the archive designs she studied.
That was her queue to redraw vintage florals from the ’50s and ’60s on humble cotton poplin and silk jersey, and drape them into little ruched and swagged bustier dresses, sarong skirts and party tops. Some shapes were inspired by the archive 1950s dresses others by ruched vintage swimwear. Draping she said was one of her favourite ways to create silhouettes because it is “so instinctive.”
Her aim was to achieve “an airiness through pleating knotting and wrapping. Spontaneous but precisely studied.” A few cotton and lace gypsy dresses apricot and lemon nodded to her boho look and she amped up the charm with accessories sending out nicely shell and watermelon slice clutch bags and a joyful leather hydrangea pouch that came in all the soft pastel Chloé colours.
Alongside many variations on the little draped floral dresses, the designer added strong shouldered duster coats in pastel lemon and pink, and slouchy scarf necked leather blousons. These voluminous ’80s proportions added a new swagger to the prettiness of her Chloé look.
Photography courtesy of Chloé.
