BLA BLA BLA~.

“Do I need a little salt?” Liz Goldwyn asks, wondering if the riot of botanicals she is sporting—a gloriously floral-printed Erdem mini dress, an expanse of California-tawny bare leg, and a pair of the designer’s seriously high, blossom-bedecked platforms—is maybe just a tiny bit too saccharine. But no, I assure Goldwyn, a renowned glamour-puss/filmmaker/jewelry designer who is hosting a cocktail party/meet and greet/trunk show for Erdem Moralioglu(left) at Barneys in Beverly Hills—you are not a bit too sweet. In fact, you look divine.

It’s a testament to Bottega Veneta’s Tomas Maier’s talent that he can make even techno fabrics super luxe. But then, isn’t all that futuristic-material development just another type of artisanal craft work, albeit not an endeavor undertaken in an olde worlde leather workshop but a high-tech laboratory? A nude silk cady that looked and felt like scuba neoprene—surfing and, somewhat less obviously, Eastern-Bloc gymnasts were the inspiration for this collection—was molded and folded into a gorgeous knee-length dress (fashioned into a trompe l’oeil top on another fantastic dress with a black sunray-pleat skirt). Matte python was rubberized, as were the zippers on white paper-thin leather tees, which were worn with black cotton pants and crepe-soled lace ups or bare thong sandals (above). And then, just to show that he’s not only about the delight of the new, Maier showed some pieces that you can do only with years of heritage and history behind you: the cube shoulder bags that had been woven together without any cutting or seaming, and a gold buckled choker and bracelet that utilizes a 3,000-year-old fox chain woven in Germany.