02 20, 2009 02:00 PM

Long Live Libertine

OVER THE WIRE

Down on Lafayette last night, the bicoastal doublet known as Libertine greeted guests with a bonneted band of colonial music makers, a hay-strewn floor, and brightly flavored cocktails that bordered on addictive. The same odd mash-up of delights (old-timey charm, earthy wit, habit-forming taste) was on show the next room over where clusters of models (covered in clusters of frisky bullion patches) stood on makeshift hay platforms (a.k.a. stages) in strippery, sparkly platforms (a.k.a. shoes).

The easy crowd, mostly industry insiders who treat the label like family — Waris and Chiara, The Mulleavy Girls, Vogue’s Ivan Shaw — got an eyeful of HRH Elizabeth II screen prints and 3-D woven flower trees that made overt references to Anglophila. Other classics from the playful pair? Try vintage fur collars reimagined as a one-of-a-kind cape as well as a gorgeously tailored three-piece skirt suit in a library print.

Funnily enough, it was not even a bit bookish.

Photos courtesy of Andrew DeFrancesco.