Images by Martin Machado

A Moroccan wind whispered across Sophie Theallet‘s runway. A palm-green silk hood slipped off a model’s head to reveal a dusty rose-colored lining. Clover-shaped cutouts in shades of paprika, sand and black-on-black danced around models’ knees on skirts, tunics and a shearling coat. When the final look, a periwinkle gown with a peasant skirt emerged, the camera shutters clicked faster and faster until their sounds became a single patter. It sounded like a welcome rain beginning to fall in the desert.

Afterwards, Loulou de la Falaise, who famously influenced another French designer’s North African-tinged collections, listed her favorite elements: the brown and navy “froufy” dress, the tonal beiges, the wide red hems, the “kind of drapey” necks, the boots. She paused… “That’s quite a lot, isn’t it?”

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Loulou de la Falaise