After seven years as a designer, Anne Valérie Hash feels she’s “turned a corner with couture.” With a few real clients to dress (young Saudi Arabian customers), she’s aiming to make her collection “more strict and wearable, with a balance between structure and femininity.” This season, she took a botanical tack, basing her shapes on the scroll-like forms of orchids. Like all research, it worked best when not taken too earnestly. A fitted, white, stiff silk sheath dress with sculptural rolled-back lapels came out as the best among her structured looks; others were marred by a curious frontal pouch that took the ecological reference a step too far. Luckily, though, Hash is also quietly cultivating another talent more likely to attract young women on the lookout for pretty party clothes. Her fairylike, micro-paneled lace dresses and skirts in cloudy gray, ivory, or pale pink have an uncontrived appeal that, though not new, is bound to be the easiest sell in this collection.
Styled By Sam 