Designer's collection of dresses inspired by molecular gastronomy
If you find yourself getting subliminally hungry while looking at designer Lela Rose’s dresses, that may be because her new fall collection was inspired by the cuisine of a Spanish chef often referred to as the best in the world.
Known as the father of molecular gastronomy, Ferran Adria helmed elBulli, which snagged the title of world’s best restaurant five times by editors and experts at influential trade publication Restaurant magazine.
Rose was one of the privileged few to dine at the Cala Montjoi restaurant on the Costa Brava in northern Spain before it was shuttered in 2011. At its height, the restaurant received more than two million reservation requests a year for 8,000 available seats.
Rose was so marked by her elBulli meal that she created her entire fall collection around the chef’s signature dishes, playing with textures, geometry, architectural silhouettes and whimsical design in homage to Adria’s avant-garde culinary audacity.
”It got me thinking about the intersection of food, fashion, and entertaining. It’s so much the world that I live in, and I think it's so much the world that our clothes live in,” the American designer said in an interview with InStyle.com.
Dresses and separates come in bold, eye-catching colors like fuchsia and chartreuse, silk is layered with feathers, body-skimming skirts are overlaid with tulle, while stacked pearls and polka dots are reminiscent of spherical orbs, a signature Adria cooking technique that turned liquids into spherical orbs.
Guests of the fashion show presented this week in New York received a book of recipes, pairing specific Lela Rose fall 2014 dresses with different dishes.
Rose is a favorite among celebrities like Mandy Moore, Eva Mendes, Lea Michele, as well as US First Lady Michelle Obama.
