Being "in market" is fashion speak for flaunting or selling your wares in the big wide World, and with a slew of new fall collections lookbooked and ready to go, it's been that time for a lot of designers this week. Margarita Saplala, a BK-based label we featured back in 2006, showed her new collection at W29 Showroom, and it's been one of our favorites so far. Flicking through the printed harem pants and floaty dresses, you'd never know that Saplala's inspiration had anything to do with the animal kingdom, but it's cracked elephant skins and butterfly wings that were the starting point for fall 2010.
Saplala custom makes all her prints, a combination of hand drawn sketches and digital graphics. There's a pattern in the new collection that looks like rabbit fur pressed up against a pane of glass, and another that's more abstracted—spidery and metallic—taken from an oily seal's coat. Working in brights is something Saplala does regardless of season, and the colorblocking for fall is just as fun as her print-on-print ensembles. Although she started out making tees, her fabric of choice these days is silk, and all the pieces have a fluid, barely-there feeling, just like a second skin should be.
