Ulla Johnson Pre-Fall 2024
For the pre-fall season, Ulla Johnson was inspired by the large-scale, sculptural works of French American sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle for their celebration of the female form and sensuality with the ideas of movement and surface treatments.
During a preview, Johnson cited how the sculptor’s works inspired the collection’s wave lines, patchworking and graphic juxtapositions. The assortment nicely spanned from black and white styles —graphic patchwork linen eyelet and lace numbers; hand-crochet and -appliqué ramie sets with scalloped edges, or a floral hand-crochet dresses with fringed accents to colorful “x-ray or filtered lens” florals in the form of sportif meets elegant dressing and a Technicolor hand-clipped eyelash fringe bomber. The ideas were a strong extension of the graphic, arty-feel she dove into for spring.
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“Handwork is always a huge part of our collection, and as we’ve grown and the collections expanded, I feel like it’s ever more important to maintain this commitment to craft and to the things that really aren’t scalable within what we do,” Johnson said. The idea extended into her evolution of crafty knitwear (hand-knits, hand-crochets and machine knits), with waved, multicolored styles made up of mixed yarns or compact viscose fringed numbers.
De Saint Phalle’s works also inspired the designer to work closer to the body, cutting more bias options, and working with abbreviated lengths across fabrications. For instance, a colorful and lightweight low-back, halter neck, hand-dyed silk habotai frock crafted by Johnson’s longtime partners in Bangalore.
“I’m into this sort of undone, prim, lady-like — a bit eccentric and still feeling quite sexy but in that tension between prim and undone,” Johnson said, later expressing emphasis on keeping each piece — especially the uptick of non-printed styles in organic jersey, fleece, linen, ramy and denim (a continually growing category) — novel with special fabric treatments (pleats, quilting, pin-tucks, etc).
The focus on new sustainable and organic materials expanded into footwear with vegan hand-braided leather across an assortment of grounded and artisanal flats.
Launch Gallery: Ulla Johnson Pre-Fall 2024
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