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I'm not entirely sure if this is Rita Saardi's absolute latest collection [2] but in any case 'Private Garden' perfectly articulates how romance should be done.  Not with vulgar frothiness or obviously fake embellishment but with a natural ease about it that results in something both organic and dreamy looking.

Saardi, a Swedish designer with Lebanese and Turkish roots and a graduate of ESMOD Paris, once said [3]...
“Fashion is about l’air du temps, as Coco Chanel once said. It’s true, but today it’s more about you’re own world, your own air du temps. If everyone else is using color and you want grey, well then it should be grey. It’s your mood, your air du temps.” 

It may be true that she feels her own air du temps but I wonder when she designed this collection (I suspect a while back as I don't think this is an SS08 collection...) did she predict that a wave of romance would wash over the catwalk biggies and overbomb us with ruffles, pleats, flowers and nostalgia.  It's a happy coincidence then that I discovered her collection just in time for romance to hit me in a certain way, the Saardi way, with her slightly off-centre and haphazard vision of a 'pretty' (I am so ready to reclaim this word again with a more indepth definition) garden.   

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