Sunset over the desert

“Africa is probably one of the last things you’d think of looking at my pieces,” says Kate O’Connor of her spring line, “but I was super-influenced by it.” Although the L.A.-based designer’s latest knitwear creations are not based on traditional African textiles or garments, the rich golds and corals and sandy shadows of Africa’s desert sunsets shimmer in the collection’s sexy halters, blouses and tunics.

O’Connor says she was inspired by a fashion magazine that featured photographs of Kate Moss in an African desert. “I think it was Italian Vogue, but there were just these unbelievable colors, so I started looking into other photos of sunsets and landscapes in Africa,” O’Connor says. The sunsets’ “stripes of gold and sand with bright pinks and peaches” were transmuted into pieces such as a puma yarn halter with brown and sandy stripes, and a metallic top with apricot and tan stripes.

Perhaps best known as a spearhead of the poncho craze with her debut pieces in 2001, the 29-year-old O’Connor embarked on a fashion career after a chance opportunity to use a knitting machine. The designer’s love of fabric can be seen in her studio, which is wall-to-wall in spools of cotton, viscose, bamboo, cashmere and other luxe yarns.

O’Connor, who studied fine art in college, designed her first full collection in 2003, and says it is the pattern-making process that fleshes out many of the ideas for her pieces. “That’s why color is always a constant force in my design,” O’Connor explains. “Those photos of Africa showed me color combinations you wouldn’t necessarily think to put together, but when you do, they look natural.”

Kate O’Connor is available at www.kateoconnordesigns.com, and at Curve, 154 N. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 360-8008, www.shopcurve.com.