Joanna Mastroianni’s Fall 2008 – Morocco-Inspired Designs

Joanna Mastroianni’s Fall 2008 – Morocco-Inspired Designs

Joanna Mastroianni launched her signature collection 15 years ago.  Clean and sensuous lines describe this talented designer’s style.  Fall 2008 is inspired by the Kingdom of Morocco, with Moorish architecture, elaborate grillwork and the delicacy of inlaid tiles.  Descriptions like Tangerine/copper/black print cap-sleeve, and Cypress bengaline elongated jacket with mandarin collar and half-belt, matching slim pants–don’t begin to describe the intricacies of Joanna Mastroianni’s most recent collection.

Can you go into more explanation about what inspired your Fall 2008 collection?

The collection was inspired from Morocco.  How much fun!  To put on these beautiful garments, but yet they’re modern, they’re couture, but again, always young in feeling.

You had a piece that reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

That really was inspired by the true architecture of that part of the world.  It was very geometric; yet at the same time, there was an interest to it. Morocco.  As she turned around, you saw something that could have been inspired from a detail of one of the top of the buildings.  It was soft, feminine, flattering to the body.  It was made up of metal in the back.  It was metal and ribbon, and these beautiful stones.  Actually I started out with the embroidery first, with the colors that created the embroidery, and that sort of set the mood for that.

What is your background?

My whole life has been about fashion. I feel like I’ve been designing forever. It’s something I always loved to do. It’s a way of life. I was making Barbie doll dresses when I was 9 years old and never stopped. The difference is I’m designing for taller dolls.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had an architecture background.

If I wasn’t designing garments, I’d be designing buildings and decorating.  But it’s all related.  Everything comes into play.  I can look at an arm on a chair and you never know what it’s going to inspire in a garment.  I ‘m always inspired by architecture, by nature, things that are anything but garments, and then I translate it into garments.

What enables you to be able to reinvent yourself every season so exquisitely?

A curiosity and a gift that I was blessed with.  Again it combines with the curiosity.  I live for the moment when I come up with a new concept that I will then take and develop. Every one of my collections has a different theme.  I thoroughly research it to a way where it becomes a way of life for me.  And this is all I can think and feel.  [Each new season] It’s the most chaotic, but it’s my most favorite time of the year.  I just learned how to walk and I can’t stop it.  I’ve been really lucky because every single collection has felt that way and every single collection that I’ve done. . . it’s felt like my greatest creation.  It’s a very comforting feeling for me as a creative person because it’s what I live for.

Joanna Mastroianni has outfitted celebrities at the Tony and Grammy Awards, and celebrity clients include Jane Seymour, Angela Bassett, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Susan Lucci, Sela Ward, Tara Reid, and Sean Young.  She has been featured in Lucire, Surface, WWD, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, People, Ebony, Cosmopolitan, just to name a few.  Visit www.joannamastroianni.comfor more information.

By Kaylene Peoples