“Do I need a little salt?” Liz Goldwyn asks, wondering if the riot of botanicals she is sporting—a gloriously floral-printed Erdem mini dress, an expanse of California-tawny bare leg, and a pair of the designer’s seriously high, blossom-bedecked platforms—is maybe just a tiny bit too saccharine. But no, I assure Goldwyn, a renowned glamour-puss/filmmaker/jewelry designer who is hosting a cocktail party/meet and greet/trunk show for Erdem Moralioglu (left) at Barneys in Beverly Hills—you are not a bit too sweet. In fact, you look divine. Moralioglu is a long way from his current home—though he grew up in Canada, he now lives in London and was recently the recipient of the superprestigious British Fashion Council/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund award. Earlier in the week he hosted a similar trunk show in New York, my hometown, but as fate would have it, I am in L.A. just when he is, so I decide to stop by Barneys to ask him how it’s going and how the two towns compare. Goldwyn has invited her special friends to this event, and Moralioglu has lately become a special friend of hers as well. “We like to play transatlantic dress-up. We style outfits over the phone!” she tells me. “We put looks together.” And like clockwork, here is her friend Gia Coppola in a seersucker trouser suit and sandals, murmuring, “I think they’re beautiful!” as she casts her eyes on Moralioglu’s latest offerings.
“Want a biscuit?” the designer, dressed in a pink shirt and a skinny tie, asks, grabbing a tray from a server. No, Erdem; put down the cookies and let’s talk! What’s your hottest item here? In New York? “This dress is the best seller in both cities,” he replies, showing off a frock that is a veritable field of gray lace, created with strips of chiffon sewn in by hand and embellished with incised birds. “The fabric reminds me of the underside of a swan. It’s somewhere in between destroyed and beautiful,” he explains. “You’d just wear it to a wedding—or to go grocery shopping.” Does he think L.A. women are different from their New York counterparts? “In L.A. you have women wearing during the day what New York women wear at night. Also, I think my New York customer may be slightly younger,” he allows. And indeed, the penchant to spend the day in sweats, especially when you’re in your 20s, seems to extend for years longer west of the Rockies. When I ply Moralioglu for more particulars, he introduces me to his sales director, the fresh-faced Jennifery Baca. Fortified with another glass of champagne and a few more cookies, we sit down on a couple of Fornasetti chairs and discuss the details. Baca confirms that both here and in New York the gray lace is the top seller, though she says that the classic trench—which people are ordering from its lookbook picture—is a close contender. Doesn’t anyone want the exquisite shearling jacket inset with flowers—a drop-dead item I am having trouble keeping my hands off? “There is one person eyeing the shearling here.” Here? In L.A.? “Maybe she travels!” Baca says, laughing. And then there are those surprises you discover when you hit the road, those unanticipated insights that make trunk shows so vital to a designer’s business. (Not to mention the obvious financial benefits: This quite small British brand has garnered orders in the six figures in both cities, the designer tells me in a thrilled whisper.) Erdem’s supershort samples have been lengthened just a bit at the behest of New Yorkers, Baca tells me, and you would think that the L.A. lady would want the shorter version, but in fact the California girl wants even a little less leg showing than her East Coast sister. Another unexpected difference? The New York woman, famously clad in black even in 95-degree sunshine, is actually more receptive to prints and patterns. “Los Angeles is not so print-based,” Baca says. “People out here are saying they don’t normally wear prints, but with our clothes it’s different. It’s so nice—we’re becoming an exception to the rule!”