The brilliant Mulleavy sisters presented their fw09 Rodarte collection in New York last Tuesday, proving once again to be nothing short of amazing. Last night at a panel I listened to Kate Mulleavy speak about the inspiration and process of this collection. The idea for the collection or at least that sparked the inspiration came to Kate as her and Laura were driving in the city and saw a deteriorating building of which you could see the buildings insulation. From there they embarked on a journey of deconstruction and deterioration in which Frankenstein seemed to appear as a guiding light. “ I realize its not the best thing to tell fashion editors that our collection was inspired by Frankenstein,” said Kate with a shy laugh. The hand stitching in this collection is a big part of the concept, as you notice when looking closely at the paneling of each piece. Leather was used and abused in each of these looks as they experimented with different techniques to alter the state of the leather. When Sally Singer asked Kate how they are perceiving this economic change in their design process, Kate answered very honestly that nothing will really change for them. They will continue as they have, creating their ideas in a way that is very disconnected from the market.