All images courtesy of Elie Tahari.
It was a sea of blue at Elie Tahari’s fall/winter 2012 presentation where “real models” showed the clothes in action as they sipped champagne and chatted amongst themselves in the designer’s showroom. There were plenty of office-ready separates like shift dresses, cropped trousers, and silk blouses. The deep jewel tones lent a luxurious mood to the collection. Tahari deftly used textures like velvet, brocade, and reptile skin to make wardrobe staples feel less like workhorses and more like show ponies, while the styling throughout the presentation proved that each piece had plenty of versatility. The biggest story of the collection was definitely the palette: he created an incredible array of blue-on-blue looks ranging from navy to teal that could convert any color-phobic shopper. We especially liked his shiny two-toned puffer coats (though the frigid temperatures outside the showroom may have had something to do with that).
Tahari is a designer who truly loves dressing women and making them feel beautiful. At an event in the Elie Tahari store in Soho this fall, he invited writers and bloggers of all ages and sizes to try on pieces from his fall/winter 2011 collection, and he could hardly contain his delight in styling and selecting pieces for each woman individually. It’s surely this enthusiasm for his customers that has made Tahari such a commercially successful designer, and one who women turn to time again for sophisticated, feminine pieces that are reliably versatile and perennially chic.
