It wasn’t difficult to see where Barbara Bui’s mind was when designing her Spring collection. Her ready-to-wear, while perfectly presentable and sometimes beautiful, served as a frame for the true stars, the Italian made leather accessories.  Bui paired lace-up shells with pants and long shorts that had corset lacing detail on the front of each leg, all to match the knee-high lace-up sandals that Nicholas Ghesquière at Balenciaga and Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy had explored in previous seasons. For less drama, there were also short lace-up booties with a slim stiletto that was similar to Alaia’s recent forays.To her credit, you can hardly blame her for her business sense – the Vietnamese-French designer started her line by creating pieces for her own boutique. With the economy in the pits, accessories are a more practical investment and she was strongest when she injected a dose of femininity in her interpretations, as in a cream laser-cut lace-up sandal that reached to the knee that was slightly Edwardian and slouchy python bags accompanied with long straps. Bui also knows how to fit a woman’s body, and the looks were well-cut, offering an array of updated basics such as fitted blazers that might seduce the most rational of customers. By Bee-Shyuan Chang

Barbara Bui