In two short years, Fforne has become one of the buzziest labels in New York, a testament to creative director Paul Helbers’s exacting talent and vision. In a dimly lit midtown studio space, Anastasia Cooper, a singer-songwriter whose work Helbers described as “psychedelic folk music somewhere between Nico and Leonard Cohen,” sang for the crowd (which included Carmen Dell’Orefice sitting front row next to Morgan Spector and Annabelle Dexter-Jones, a cool combination that captured the brand’s appeal). Cooper’s performance set the tone for the seductive collection that followed, which found Helbers exploring silhouettes that caressed the body. “The curve is our signature,” he said days earlier at his SoHo studio. “What’s new this season is we’re adding techniques like sculpting and draping—which I do directly on the body—and these techniques give a sensuality and a femininity. There are a lot of almost liquid, Madame Grès–ish silhouettes.”
This was most noticeable in a new jacket shape, created without lapels and cut with princess seams.“We kind of reduced [the jacket] to the minimum,” Helbers explained. It was part of the opening look, made from gabardine crepe and worn over a jersey draped-neck top and tucked into wool trousers with a meticulously pleated elastic waistband that truly redefined the way a luxury brand should approach an elastic waistband from this point forward.
A vibrant shade of emerald green was one of the stars of the collection. It looked quite luscious when paired with white, either as easy trousers worn with a cotton poplin shirt with an oversized dolman sleeve that created a capelike effect, or especially in the delicately draped and shirred jersey sweetheart top with spaghetti halter straps that was worn with a pair of subtly voluminous trousers in heavy sateen. “We wanted to use these superheavy couture fabrics and give them an ease, so we did a smocking on the waistband, which gives it a subtle triangle pleat,” Helbers said. “They look very round and have a kind of fullness that you normally have on a couture dress.”
There is indeed an undercurrent of couture silhouettes that lies at the heart of Fforme. Take the long crepe jersey shift dress in an earthy shade of brown with delicate gathers at the neckline and then more floating in the middle of the waistline; or the dark olive cocoon coat with a shawl collar popped up to frame the model’s face. (Helbers wants you to cocoon yourself in your coat, so he made sure the collar could stand—and, more crucially, stay up.) His evening propositions were particularly exciting: A simple dress with allover semisheer sequined embellishments was worn underneath one of the label’s signature jackets with a rounded sleeve (as the model walked and her dress caught the light, it became a gossamer vision), and a more structured black strapless mid-length dress in black gabardine had a slightly ballooning skirt that ended mid-calf. They were on opposite ends of the spectrum in a way, one louche, one rigid, one more outwardly revealing than the other, but they both had the same effortless appeal.
The finale dress was made from hammered lamé and was in fact two pieces, a simple column gown with a sculpted bust, and an asymmetrical over-piece that came underneath the left breast and featured a shirring detail at the opposite side. “The idea is that you can put it on over anything and it will turn it into an evening outfit; it creates a frame with whatever you’re wearing underneath,” Helbers explained. He drapes all the clothes himself in his studio in Paris, and listening to him talk about his process is not unlike talking to an artisan who works with his hands. Though the eventual clothes that his customers will wear are not made by the designer himself, there is a sense that one is being welcomed into an intimate creative ritual. A rare feat.
