Samantha Pleet

In high school, Samantha sat at the theater table, next to the kids at the “Star Trek” table. Presently, she lives in Brooklyn, a long way from home, by Oak Road in Philadelphia, with horses and a peach pit style diner known for their banana splits. There is a fairy tale sweetness and clean Americana novel, feel glittering beneath Samantha’s urban edge, in her signature Madeline meets Hasidic-style hats, high waisted shorts, jumpers and shrunken blazers. The seeds of her bringing fables to life were in the cafeteria at school. Today, she says, “I like to take influences from books, films, characters and history… my clothes tell a story.” When Samantha gets dressed in the morning, it’s admittedly for “whatever adventure might happen that day.” Her red and white striped dress that she wears with a vintage straw hat was derived from a narrative she created for her Spring 2010 collection, where clothes pack easily into one suitcase for a road trip to upstate New York, and one might end up at a waterfall. She told me that next collection (Spring 2011) is inspired by J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey . I love that classic bohemian glamour of ’50′s, Smith College, Princeton University, waspy intellectuals emotionally stifled, but loveable in their upper crust Manhattan nervous breakdown lives. I can see lots of worn cashmere and loafers. Samantha could herself be stepping into the New York Yacht club for a weekend at home from college in her red and navy Chanel dress that her grandmother gave her. Perhaps, Diane Keaton, one of Samantha’s icons, who she fantasizes will play her in twenty years (should there be a movie of Samantha’s life) could be cast as a character in the tale of her new collection as an iconoclast Smithy, she’s the perfect free spirit in tweeds and plaids.

If you like Samantha, you may also enjoy Hannah Dilworth, Nova Landaeus, and Ashley Wick.