A Touch of Paris at New Southland Shop
Coffered ceilings and wainscoting decorate the Catherine Marlet shop in Paris. But such touches of classic ornamentation are in sharp contrast to the contemporary style of Marlet’s designs. Though the clothes are born in Paris, they seem more at home in the designer’s new West Hollywood boutique, where ultramodern architecture echoes the soft geometry of her ready-to-wear.
“I feel as if California is my home,” says the French designer, who spent an eight-month sabbatical in Los Angeles eight years ago, then returned to Paris, admittedly with Los Angeles on her mind. “I wanted to create something that would reflect the open-minded atmosphere that I was leaving behind.”
Three years later, backed by investors, the former interior designer and architect became a fashion designer. Her relaxed, California-inspired clothes caught on in Paris stores, such as the large department store Printemps. Eventually, there were Marlet boutiques in Marbella, Spain; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and St. Barthelemy, French West Indies.
Now the sole owner of her corporation, Marlet has just opened her fourth boutique, this one on Melrose Avenue.
“It was important to me to have a shop here,” she says. “The thinking is new and the weather is good. New York? Maybe later. But it was not my choice for my first U.S. boutique.”
In Los Angeles recently, to put the finishing touches on the shop, she was plagued with the flu, but energetic enough to dress a model for a photo session.
Intrigued with the model’s startling red hair, the petite, gray-haired designer complained that most Los Angeles models are rather boring “and blond. I’m tired of blond models.”
Asked to show the designs that best exemplify her signature look, Marlet pulled out an outfit of winter-weight taupe wool and a lighter linen-and-cotton ensemble.
Her separates are meant to be layered, she said, to be peeled off when temperatures rise, piled on when there’s a chill. Marlet flung a knit top over a cotton tank top and under a slouchy blazer. The three pieces were then teamed with clinging knit jodhpurs.
A ribbed, wool knit, asymmetrically seamed skirt was paired with a sweater and topped by an oversize knit poncho.
Marlet’s menswear incorporates the same multilayer approach, but her strategy is less complex. There are fewer components, and the mix is traditional: shirts, blazers and trousers, meant to be coordinated.
Marlet changed careers at a time in life when most working people retire. After years of designing her own wardrobe and the interiors of other people’s homes, she switched to fashion.
“Designing clothes is like having an affair; you must be totally involved in it, and you must be mature or it doesn’t work,” she says.
Her total involvement ranges from developing all the fabrics she uses to designing the jewelry her mannequins wear.
