Prints Charming

When Diane von Furstenberg sought a designer to entrust with the future of her empire of wrap dresses, she found a soul mate in the Scottish talent JONATHAN SAUNDERS. Now her legions of fans, ALLISON WILLIAMS included, are being seduced once again

-  Eric Wilson

 

When Jonathan Saunders packed up his belongings last May to move from London, his home for the past 16 years, to New York City, where he would become Diane von Furstenberg’s designated design successor, his biggest concern was for his dog, an ailing 14-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier named Amber.

“She made it over the ocean, just,” Saunders says, six months after settling into a charming town house in the West Village along with his partner, Justin Padgett, a fashion publicist. “But she now has a kind of strange second wind and this sprightly step. She’s socializing. She’s been feeling a new lease on life.”

Amber, it turns out, is not alone in this regard. First, there is von Furstenberg and the bright new direction that Saunders has brought to her business, which has experienced numerous revivals in its 45 plus years but none as significant as this: In naming Saunders as chief creative officer, she has stepped back from the runway spotlight for the first time to instead focus on her philanthropic passions. And then there is what has happened to Saunders himself, who little more than a year ago had all but given up on fashion after resigning from his signature label in London.

“I wanted to change my pace of life and do something different,” says Saunders, a confident 38-year-old who in fact had made plans to design a furniture collection when von Furstenberg came calling. He was hesitant to follow in the footsteps of such an iconic living designer. And yet the scale of the job—and the resonance of the von Furstenberg name in popular culture as well as in fashion—made it impossible for him to resist. “I saw an opportunity to tell a story with clothes but also to have more meaning,” he says.