Ulla Johnson is weeks away from opening a long-planned Los Angeles store. “I’ve gestated it longer than my three children—combined,” she laughed at her showroom. The pandemic slowed progress on construction, and so did the weather; winter’s endless atmospheric rivers and their accompanying rains made finishing the exteriors complicated. There’s a bright spot, though: They produced the super blooms that form the backdrop of these pictures.
Johnson’s new resort collection is as abloom with flowers as ever. One especially dazzling print features hand-painted blossoms over a trippy psychedelic ground. But as she looks toward the LA opening and other developments (one of which is a new Paris showroom that will help her brand grow internationally), she’s embracing other categories.
Denim, to start with. There’s a range of non-traditional shapes in a bright shade of pistachio, like a jacket with blouson volumes and a flared mini. Knitwear is an increasingly substantial part of her lineup, too, and she showed an extended range of options, from a red minidress with a gently flared hem in a compact knit to multicolored hand-crocheted matching sets. She’s also signed her first-ever license. It’s with an Italian shoe manufacturer that she says will help her bring the embroideries and other embellishments her ready-to-wear is known for to well-constructed footwear.
As for embellishments, Johnson is expanding her vocabulary. The lookbook opens with a caftan in a discharge printed burnout that conjures California’s sun-kissed hills (a green version looks more like ocean waves), and there’s an intricately patterned quilted jacket that features five separate fabrics. Probably the most striking piece is a coat in fuzzy brushed alpaca that has been treated with a rose gold foil to evoke the gilt sculptures of the Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral.
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