A suburban utopia — where perfectly coiffed women with perfectly coiffed dogs, manicured lawns and a couple cars in the garage reside — was the story behind Humberto Leon and Carol Lim’s resort collection for Opening Ceremony. They shot their look book in New Jersey, where the real nosy neighbors brought out their dogs to see what was going on — some of them made it into the shoot. Even if OC is aesthetically fleeing the city, it is a label that will forever be linked to downtown, so the collection was more “Edward Scissorhands” than “The Stepford Wives” with a bit of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show as an accent.
These housewives had a rebellious streak, illustrated in faux-leather moto jackets and slipdresses laser cut to look like tire treads. One white poplin shirt had moto zipper accents, another opened down the back with a row of hook-and-eye closures. There were topiary-inspired jacquards, aerial suburban map prints and a capsule collection of canine-motif T-shirts that spoofed show dogs. But it was styled with quirky polish in lean, layered silhouettes, many of which were tied together with a circular graphic belt. “You can buy into these little stories, but you can also have great solids,” said Lim.