Spring was a swashbuckling affair at Salon 1884. Andrea Mary Marshall chose Giacomo Casanova, the 18th-century Venetian adventurer, as her starting point. Criminal as some of his behavior was, Casanova, who is best known for his seductions, continues to fascinate (yet another biography was published in 2022). It’s not difficult to see why Marshall would be drawn to this self-invented man who was able to adapt to seemingly any situation. “I really love creating a character,” said the artist and designer, who took the self-portraits that comprise the look book.
Casanova recounted his adventures and journeys in a memoir called The Story of My Life; listening to Marshall explain her process and intentions—“I wanted this collection to feel like a love letter that felt like a heartbreak,” she said—it seems like she could pen an essay called “The Story of a Collection.” Marshall, who was already a successful artist when she launched Salon 1884, thought she could balance both areas of creativity, but she found that fashion took up all her time. “I felt I needed to bring my art practice back in [to Salon], and one thing that was holding me up was the patternmaking; I couldn’t really express myself the way I wanted to. I wasn’t in control of the silhouette, the proportion, where the darts go…I was always diluting [my ideas],” she said. To rectify the situation, she hired an FIT professor to teach her patternmaking and draping. “I worked like a maniac,” Marshall continued. “I didn’t sleep for six months, and I didn’t really need to because I was so involved.”
Perhaps it was the romantic/decadent theme, but this collection had a distinctly dressed-up feeling. Among the fanciest pieces were a “cake” dress made of 150 yards of toffee-colored tulle and a Vionnet-y black gown with triangular inserts of black lace. Casanova wrote of a ménage à trois with two nuns, and the black and white typical of habits was used for a cheeky basque corseted dress with a full skirt, with a slit up one leg that revealed the hip-padding underneath, which Marshall styled with a white veil. The 18th century met the New Look in two coatdresses, one of snug black leather with hip flanges/pocket flaps, the other in caramel Loro Piana fabric with corset lacing at the princess seams to the waist and down the back, with panniered hips and a fuller skirt. Beautifully made, these pieces had a certain formality and historicism.
