http://www.jmendel.com/

Friday, 3pm at the Promenade, Bryant Park

This label was originally a fur company founded 1870 to service Russian Aristocrats. Now, five generations later, Gilles Mendel creates elegant, delicate, ladylike dresses for the elite. Nepotism did not get him this job, his sketches; eye for luxurious details and focus on quality earns him is accolades.
This season’s runway show had a vintage 70’s disco and rock soundtrack. Sleek white outfits, of short shorts or elongated vests, blouson styled tops. Some cream-colored fur, (for a chilly spring?) elegant taupe dresses and suits, pearl grey sequins to set the stage for modern glam that might still have been at home at Studio 54 in its heyday. There were also lots of tucks and pleats for figure flattering looks and couture treatments. Tomato red, mauve, plum, and fushia and violet flooded the runway after the initial groupings of neutrals.

Spotted in the front row: Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Carrie Underwood, Mary J. Blige

Comment on J. Mendel’s  Spring 2008 show in our fashion forum