Roksanda reworks best dresses for Matches

Truth: Roksanda Ilincic knows her way around a dress. The London designer has earned runway plaudits and client gratitude for her cleverly draped cocktail dresses and gowns.

By ELLE UK and NonePublished: 04 November 2011

<p>Roksanda Ilincic and Ruth Chapman</p>

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Truth: Roksanda Ilincic knows her way around a dress. The London designer has earned runway plaudits and client gratitude for her cleverly draped cocktail dresses and gowns.

Second truth: Matches understands what women want. The boutique gauges what sells and what stays on the rails every season, and its putting that awareness into play by asking designers to create capsule collectionsstarting with Ilincic.

The designer revisited her back catalogue to create a greatest-hits range of cocktail dresses exclusively for the retailer.

Im a dress woman, Ilincic told us. Dresses are special because theyre a total look. Its important to fall in love with a dress and choose it intuitively, rather than with any calculation.

The six dresses represent some of Ilincics favourite pieces from past seasons, refreshed with a new colour, fabric or detail. Theres a silver version of the autumn 2011 dress that Florence Welch wore for her Oscar performance, as well as cobalt blue and aquamarine reworkings of a shift with a folded neckline detail.

Long or short, body-skimming or roomy, the dresses share an energising colour palette and an understanding of how a woman wants to be seen.

When you look at my dresses, theyre considered from every angle, Ilincic said. Its important that when you enter a party you make an appearance, and also when you are leaving, to make a grand exit.

The dresses also incorporate client feedback. An aqua silk dress with a deep waterfall back gained a button to enable greater coverage. That folded-neckline shift comes in two weights of

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