Before her passing, Lela Rose’s grandmother, who she endearingly calls “grand Sue,” would send her wooden inlaid boxes brimming with poems on hand-drawn stationery. From the age of 10, Rose received them every year in lieu of gifts, so she thought this pre-fall collection might be a good way to return the favor, creating it as a love letter to the woman who informed much of her outlook on stylish living.
Despite her career as a model in the ’50s, “grand Sue” enjoyed simpler pursuits in her downtime like ornithology or working on such craft projects as the boxes. Nevertheless, “she was always elegant, always dressed,” said Rose. “Even at the airport, she looked beautiful.”
Her travel uniform usually consisted of wide-leg slacks and a proper shirt, a version of which appeared here as a roomy suit look in maroon crepe styled with a cotton poplin blouse with bishop sleeves and lace insets.
Rose herself prefers dresses for traveling in and as is expected offered many full-skirted floral ones. Some came in a rich-looking hunter green checkered fil coupe with brocade detailing, while others were cut from organza with a spirited print lifted from her grandmother’s chalk drawings.
During a preview, Rose singled out a column dress embroidered with paillette sunflowers as the Sue-iest of them all, adding that her grandmother would’ve been drawn to the comfort of its neoclassical Empire line — as well as the swish of its attached capelet.
Overall, this was a more sophisticated effort for Rose, noticeably lacking in her signature tongue-in-cheek touches. Still, she couldn’t help herself when it came to designing the buttons on a couple of her clingy knits: clear orbs encasing burnt paper petals. They were an homage to the pressed flowers that would often accompany her grandmother’s poems, and like her grandmother each one is unique.