Alannah Hill has paired up with artist Veronica Ballart for a revamp of packaging and store visuals for next season, which is an interesting and rather welcome turn. I’ve always liked the aesthetic of Alannah Hill boutiques but Ballart’s work emphasises the whimsical aesthetic of the brand — the frippery and frivolity of bows and frills and bows dressed in vibrant watercolour, like a particularly delicious J Herbin ink. This isn’t a lady of leisure in a sultry, sensual way. The aesthetic is playful; it’s daydreamy; it’s decadence and hedonism wrapped up in crepe paper made of crushed flowers.
I am getting Miss Dior Cherie deja vu, though Sofia Coppola certainly wasn’t the first to embrace the notion of flight and airiness with fairy tale femininity. Coppola, however, tends to play with pastels, creating a world in which streets are paved with icing flowers and rivers run pale violet. Veronica Ballart’s pink/violet/black palette is differently charming: capricious, fanciful and tinged with an effervescence that melts like fairy floss secretly spiked with wine.
Ballart, I think, will suit the label quite well. She brings lightness and movement to her work that I find quite appealing:
I’m particularly fond of the way the colours run into each other, which fits my impression of the Alannah Hill aesthetic rather well. Very few brands produce clothes in which you are almost encouraged to clash colours, mix prints and layer texture over texture over texture.
(And, just quietly, I’m heartbroken that the girl in the left top picture has lost three balloons. It makes gorgeous lines in the piece but augh, lost balloons. The thought of losing my bobbing little rubber bags of helium made me very anxious when I was a child — I used to triple and quadruple tie the string to my wrist just to make sure I wouldn’t lose it. And, of course, when I got home, I went off to play and left the balloons, all forgotten, in the corner to deflate.)
(All pictures by Veronica Ballart.)
strangely incoherent love letters 