Zimmermann’s Good and Bad Love
The good girl gone bad is an oft-invoked muse, and for Australian export Zimmermann, corruption has never been so sweet. The latest Resort collection from the brand, which marks its New York runway debut, plays with the duality of goodness and badness, and the beauty of lost innocence.
Designer Nicky Zimmermann, who founded the label with her sister Simone in 1991, found inspiration in the good girl-meets-bad boy trope exemplified by Terrence Malick’s Sissy Spacek-starring outlaw drama, Badlands. Zimmerman split the collection into two parts, with each part based in either a white or black palette, accented with prints and metallics. A subtle undercurrent of Western influences, seen in patch-worked paisleys, checkered prints, and swathes of cotton fringe, connotes a spirited sense of adventure. Of the first half of the collection Zimmermann says, “[It’s] really fresh, sweet, and light, and pretty. The other half is the more muted, the darker, the sexier.”
By juxtaposing loose, fluttering silhouettes in silk organza with body-hugging dresses and separates punctuated with sheer geometric French lace, cut-outs, and contoured seam lines, the collection alternates between innocence and the provocative. Meticulously tailored and inventive swimwear, a Zimmermann signature, is reinvented this time around with bold cutouts, embroidered Lycra, and slinky ruffled accents.
