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02/19/2009 05:51 PM

Marchesa Draws From Oz, Proenza Schouler Deconstructs

By: George Whipple

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The latest round of designers to venture outside the tents at Bryant Park are finding inspiration in Chelsea. NY1's George Whipple filed the following report.

The lovely ladies of Marchesa, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, recently presented their latest collection at the Chelsea Art Museum, and what an appropriate place to show masterpieces of modern design.

The designers say this season they were inspired by fairy tales.

"We did love watching the Wizard of Oz again. It takes you back to a childhood and it was, we read them all, there are so many in there but there's something about Dorothy," said Chapman.

"Yea there's something about Dorothy," said Craig.

The duo takes us somewhere over the rainbow and into a galaxy with creatively constructed silhouettes like a shooting star ball gown.

"That's Georgina coming in. She was like, I've had a vision I want to do a dress that's shooting stars and we're like ok, how we going to do that?" said Craig.

"That came from the Good Witch, yea cause she had little stars on her costume," said Chapman.

It seems that outside the tents, Chelsea is the place to be.

First, it was fantasy dresses in an art museum. Next up was a raw, rough and ready storefront for the magical clothes of Proenza Schouler.

The two designers this season have left behind their military uniforms and theme dominated shows.

"It doesn't seem completely appropriate right now to have this huge kind of grand show, just kind of scale things down a bit, make it more about the clothes and less about everything else," said Co-Designer Jack McCullough.


Their appliqued and sometimes simple dresses were in keeping with the times.

"We're feeling something that felt a little more natural, like a return to home, we're looking at a lot of interiors, a lot of furniture especially for accessories," said McCullough.

"Such a warmth of being enveloped and then we're playing with this idea of structure and the breaking down of structure," said Co-Designer Lazaro Hernandez.