In visiting Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great, Johnson Hartig not only crossed an item off his bucket list, he also found general inspiration for his fall collection. I say general because while you can clearly see how the designer interpreted the sun symbols on the pavilions in Potsdam into an elaborate decoration on the back of a jacket, or used elements of sky and space in homage to the aristocrat’s interest in astronomy, he didn’t cling too tightly to his starting point. In fact, Americanisms made up a good percentage of the collection. Among them were embellished jeans, a crazy quilt pattern printed on a textured fabric enlivened with bits of gold sparkle acting like stitches, and Hartig’s use of a gold “tweed” much like something his mother wore when being a hostess-with-the-mostest in the ’60s.
A tunic over pants was Hartig’s preferred silhouette for fall; he said he was after a look that was “a little more restrained for us and more elegant.” There was a slimness to the line, but restraint can only be relative in the Libertine universe. It was perfectly achieved in a black crepe dress with gently tucked long sleeves and elaborate beadwork at the breast. To this viewer, it was the spiritual heir of the black “necklace” dress Tina Chow once wore. Coats, in a reissued animal print, in a shiny reptile-look, or plaid with transfer rhinestone roses, were meant to be belted close at the waist.
Sans-souci—to be without care—is a seemingly impossible ideal in this post-truth era, yet fashion has temporary transformative powers. “People relate to the joy in the clothes,” Hartig said, “I hear it all the time: ‘Your clothes bring me such joy.’” The designer’s delight in pendant embroidery on a densely beaded jacket or tinsel sparkling among marabou shows that, 25 years in, Hartig isn’t immune to that emotion either. You might say he’s built his own Sanssouci in the form of a brand, rather than a palace.
