What if you could have Caroline Issa, the style star and fashion director of London’s Tank Magazine, design a complete wardrobe for you? That’d be pretty amazing, right? Nordstrom thought so, and so they asked Caroline to create a Signature Collection of 28 pieces, many of which, it turns out, look pretty darn sharp with a pair of blue jeans. Which jeans, exactly? Well, if you’re Caroline and you’re in Paris for the fall 2015 ready-to-wear collections – which she was when we did this shoot – then it’s a pair of cropped straight legs from Current/Elliott. “I just got them,” she told me as we walked down Pigalle’s Rue des Martyrs, a charming, car-free street lined with many family-run businesses and delicious little markets. “I’m really into jeans that are anti-skinny straighter at the ankle right now. These are perfect.”
With her new jeans Caroline wore the silk necktie blouse and tailored safari jacket from her debut collection, which launched about a month ago and was inspired by a trip she took to Morocco, plus Dior’s couture cage-heel boots (only the coolest shoes in town). It was the kind of look that street style photographers might ignore, but that a lot of women (like me) love. “It’s not fashion, it’s not too trendy,” Caroline said about the collaboration, which will continue for two years and deliver a total of eight collections to customers who love buying luxury, but not big-time labels. “Just think great tailored separates, beautiful cashmere, amazing outerwear, the best Italian fabrics.” C’est chic, non? We certainly think so.