“I often think about what Joseph set out to do when he first started the brand,” Joseph creative director Louise Trotter mused about founder Joseph Ettedgui, “and what I always come back to is that he made a uniform for women.” And so her spring collection mixed androgynous house codes with more refined feminine elements.
It opened with a riff on the basic white shirt, T-shirt and black skirt, and then ran the gamut through drop-waist dresses, jackets and trenchcoats. These simple and familiar silhouettes were elevated with asymmetric knots and bows or loops of sporty webbing tape edge. Fabrics included cotton poplins, jersey, paper-thin leather and a creased cotton-silk with metal inside that created subtle volumes. There were also flashes of hand-sourced vintage brocade. Plain white sneakers were the shoes of choice — leaving nothing to distract from Trotter’s understated, yet intriguing designs.