Margaretha Ley's Yellow

Open the December 1988 American Vogue and Escada doesn't ask for attention, it assumes it. Margaretha Ley built the house on exactly this: the finest fabrics, cashmere and silk and heavy wool, then loaded with print until every surface had a job. Anna Wintour had taken the editor's chair only that year, and the issue still carried the loud confidence of the pre-crash decade.

The whole philosophy sits in this riot of black blooms across yellow silk, a black sash pulling the noise into a waist. More was the argument, not the excess. Restraint came later, and Escada was never really interested.