Raquel Allegra’s pre-fall collection began with “We Float,” a song by the British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. The lyrics, “We float/take life as it comes,” suddenly made sense to her as she was on her way to work one day. “I’m a multi-note thinker, I’ll take an idea and it starts to birth other ideas,” she said via Zoom from her West Coast studio. “The first seed of inspiration was the song, but I drive along the water every day on my way downtown to work and sometimes there are sailboats in the water; and what I imagine is there’s this relationship between the sails and the wind—you don’t see the wind but it’s there—so it’s this invisible dance partner. And even those sails, they’re sturdy and heavy, but when you see them from a distance they look like they’re as light as a piece of gauze.” She continued, “All of these elements float together in my own creative mind as this way that we are our own little sailboats in this giant ocean, and it’s kind of sweet to think of our clothing as a sail, like our partner in life carrying us through.”
The collection included many of Allegra’s tried-and-true fabrics and prints like tie -dyes and overprinted jacquards. This time a miniature paisley pattern emerged from underneath dip dyed dresses and separates in shades of deep marine blue and moss green. “There are magical things that happen when you’re working with a silk blend. The different fibers react to the dye in different ways. It kind of creates a vibration of color,” she explained. A floral fabric reminiscent of botanical images was pretty, especially on a simple dress with short sleeves that featured a weighed-down hem to further give it the illusion of floating. “You know, being out here in Los Angeles, we’re like a little satellite,” she explained. “We are not on the subway, we’re not on buses, we’re not walking, so we don’t get that full immersion into what people are wearing; it’s more ‘what do we wanna wear? What feels good to us?’”
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