After decamping to Madrid as an international guest at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, Silvia Tcherassi was back home in New York at the Nino Mier gallery with her pre-fall collection.

The Tcherassi woman is a perpetual globe-trotter and this season, she grabbed her passport and headed into the desert. Asked if there was any one in particular, Tcherassi’s daughter and design director Sofia spoke along abstract lines. She could be in the Sahara or the Gobi, it doesn’t matter. “We were more inspired by the contrast of the desert. It has this softness, but also this harshness. It’s super hot, but it can get super cold, too,” she said.  

In this age of climate crisis, dressing for extreme weather is something designers are paying more attention to, and it’s a fitting exercise for pre-fall, given this season’s early summer delivery has to see customers through to winter. That said, Tcherassi’s Colombian blood runs hot and the closest thing to cold-weather dressing she offered in this look book is a cold-shoulder. They were the fil rouge for just about every gown — some with halter necklines or batwing sleeves, retro foulard prints or draping that crossed over models like mummies.  

Ah, a clue to the desert in question. Sofia later revealed she had just returned from Egypt, where she wore look 19, a bias knit maxi in radiant sunset-colored stripes while exploring the Giza pyramids. It had an acrylic bead wrapped in braided leather at the collar, a technique borrowed from African drums that was used as embellishment throughout. 

Looking back with Egypt now in the mind’s eye, one could easily imagine Sofia (the embodiment of a Tcherassi woman) riding camelback through dunes in a sand-washed silk utility set or floating down the Nile like Cleopatra in a plunging royal blue caftan knotted at the waist.   

This collection was in its final stages when Sofia packed her bags, but upon her return “everything tied together,” she said. “I was like ‘Oh, OK.’ It was validation that the research we did was correct.”