All Hail the Eccentric Dresser

Emerging New York designer Charles Harbison, who recently dressed Beyoncé for the Yeezy Season 1 show, has devoted collections to a range of muses, from Sade to Pocahontas. His spring 2015 collection was inspired by Nica Rothschild, the heiress who became a patron to jazz musicians like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. When a stylist friend brought her name up, Harbison began to research Rothschild and quickly became obsessed. “I love really forward-thinking, intellectual, eccentric women,” he says. “There’s the reckless abandon with which she attacked the later part of her life that I thought was amazing. I had already been toying around with jazz references or something zoot-suit-like, and then I found her. She had an intriguing beauty that I really responded to.” The result: asymmetrical coats and dresses bedecked with mismatched rosettes worthy of a Jazz Age beauty.