Alexandra O’Neill’s resort lineup for Markarian is a potpourri of options that fit whatever definition of “resort” her shopper may have. There’s her usual cocktail-ready holiday options, these trimmed with luscious velvets and finished in sparkling brocades, and her styles meant for true holi-days—meaning warm-weather appropriate “vacation pieces,” as she called them at a preview, which “transition and have longevity throughout the season.”
O’Neill knows how to make a good party dress. There’s an abundance of women in New York—many editors at this very magazine—who would be happy to confirm that. But this lookbook offers plenty proof: A coquette-ish LRD (little red dress, naturally) in velvet is a standout, as is a black floor-length sheath that looks demure in front but reveals a low-slung tie and train in the back. Her usual tea-length options remain covetable and are true crowd pleasers, though it’s nice to see O’Neill push into more niche territory with delightfully playful alternatives like a black carwash fringe moment.
O’Neill has also been working on defining what Markarian daywear looks like; here she did so with a range of silky, wispy, easy frocks and an array of knits. The former are the more successful—they encompass the same elegance that defines her eveningwear.
The season’s throughline is a bouquet of jaunty florals in an abundance of fabrications and realizations. The reasoning behind this was O’Neill’s longing for warmer weather while she was working on this lineup over the winter months. She watched the Apple TV+ show Palm Royale, she said, which “is totally ridiculous but so good.” The show might have inspired the warmth—and foliage—in this collection, but its outlandishness also comes through in its best look: a dress made of tons of tiny light-blue sequined circles finished with pink embroidery around them—they looked like bubbles or even snow globes. Funky and frisky yet totally appropriate, it was the just-right meeting point between O’Neill’s winter holiday dressing and summer vacation-wear.
