naturally

Even though Vena Cava’s Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai found inspiration while vacationing in Vietnam this season—designing the entire collection from a hotel room in Hoi An—their vision for Spring 2012 found its center closer to home, circling back to the loft space in Brooklyn where the duo first made one-of-a-kind dresses for their creative friends in the neighborhood. “We started Vena Cava eight years ago, and it felt like the right time to go back to our roots,” says Buhai. Naturally, they called on that network of muses to help them retrace their best steps: Geometric prints, circular halter-neck dresses, elegant high-waisted pants, and the languid mid-century mood of their early collections were in the air again. (Moonlit nights in Vietnam were spent indoors, revisiting the work of 1940s movie star Barbara Stanwyck.)

Those grounding principles gained new luster when filtered through a tropical lens. Hothouse florals softened the strictness of a pencil skirt, sturdy wooden platform shoes came furnished with traditional Vietnamese whip-stitching, and the color palette was awash with the faded grandeur of colonial Indochine architecture. Irreverent touches—an elegant botanical print that turned out to be a constellation of marijuana leaves—were certainly not lost in translation. Ultimately, though, the gauze-like knits and pretty summer frocks spoke to the practical concerns of a working wardrobe. For example, there were fewer eveningwear high notes than usual, and the new line of Vena Cava handbags that launches this season comes with price points planted firmly on solid ground, starting at around $275. “We wanted to make clothes that were reality-based,” said Mayock. “Unfussy, easy pieces that our friends want to wear, so getting their input was invaluable.”