I’m an objet-addict. In recent evidence, I’ve taken to carrying clutches that aren’t clutches at all. I fall in love with an old bronze box, a “traveling altar” from Tibet, and suddenly it’s my handbag for the night. This explains, in part, my obsession with designer Julian Louie. Within his fall collection, an assortment of easy pieces in smoky, upholstery-inspired fabrics, is a cocoon-shaped silk satin dress embroidered with flora like edelweiss and ivy. It was atop a chair Georges Jacob created for Marie-Antoinette’s Petit Trianon that Louie first encountered the pattern, proving that sometimes an object is too perfect to leave well enough alone. Further evidence lies in a ruffled skirt embellished with the same flowers and trimmed with gold-tooled leather referencing the antique books laying about Louie’s apartment.  Perhaps Louie’s embrace of interiors, old world and otherwise, comes from his background in architecture.  The designer studied the discipline before realizing his heart was in creating clothing, rather than buildings. “There was something about the immediacy of it that I was interested in,” says Louie of the transition. “There’s a vitality to fashion.” So, the journey began for the Sante Cruz native, who was soon noticed by Francisco Costa (who recommended him for Italian Vogue’s Protégé Project).  Now, Louie’s collection has taken him back indoors, away from the surf and sunset-inspired looks that defined his past collections. Clothes aside, I’m equally obsessed with Louie’s new hair, a candy floss coif, the tips dyed the palest platinum fading into fluorescent pink. Oh, and there’s something else to love about Louie: he’s the son of two fiction writers. “Very special,” is how he describes his upbringing with a raised eyebrow and a sly smile. “There was no TV, it was always Dickens before bed.”

http://julianlouie.com