Fashion designer Dyanne Marte has been bringing her sporty and catchy knitwear to the Eastern Market weekend market area for a couple of years, now. She and her clothes are hard to miss—Dyanne, 32, is as tall as a fashion model and has a smile to match, but she is demure beside her vibrant purple, red, turquoise, lemon curd and chartreuse-colored wrap dresses, head bands and silk-screened tees, which announce themselves boldly to passersby from inside a lipstick pink booth, complete with a generous, mirrored dressing room, stylish anywhere.
Personally, I love the chartreuse tank stenciled with birds that look like bright tattoos or the black palazzo pants, a wardrobe staple and, with her wrap dresses at $100, one of her best sellers. Like the wrap dresses, she can make the pants to order, for about $60 a pair—just tell her your size and inseam. I have three pairs, sigh, one in brown and two in black, of different sizes, one for skinny days and one for not so skinny days. They flow like palazzo pants one dreams of. Even standing still, they flow. But don’t wear them through puddles.
My little daughter S. sleeps with my mandarin orange tank top ($20-$25) with the eagle print across the back shoulder. Looks like biker-chic. The fit is snug, with a bit of Lycra, and like all her knits, comfortable to wear atop biking shorts and sneaks or swooping skirt, the palazzo pants and heel, and of course jeans. They can go from a workout to a lunch, from poker nights to the PTA, with washes in between, not fading them down one bit. S-person, get your own! Sorry, Dyanne does not make pint-size clothes.
But big- life-sized, they are as fun as a Technicolor romp, come in all sizes, are giving and forgiving, with the contrasting candy and jewel-colors or smashed against the matte black, brown or gray length of leg or sleeve for a stunning combination, belted, tied, wrapped, loosened, tightened, or simply left to drape.
“The Capitol Hill crowd likes neutrals, but with a little bit of punch,” Marte said. So she delivers. On a recent September weekend morning, a mom-and -daughter pair , or some variation, inquired about the universal dress ($100) as a possible bridesmaid outfit and a woman selected a lilac-violet combo shirt as potential yoga wear.
Marte graduated in 2003 from Pratt Institute with a degree in design management and has worked in New York for Anna Sui, Cynthia Rowley, New York & Co., Kay Unger, J. Crew menswear and Tanner Designs, the latter while attending graduate school.
She has always liked knitwear and says she wanted to create a line that was affordable yet stylish and accessible, so started her own company out of her 4,000 square-foot Baltimore rowhouse later in 2003. Dennya & Co. now consists of her and her mother, and they do all the design and pattern work themselves, including the silk screens.
Expect a new look for fall, as shown in the chocolate bolero jacket adorned with the sassy hot pink trim and cloth flower created from remnants.
“I am trying to move the company in a different direction, stylistically,” Marte said, with a move to wovens in the fall like the stretch wool material in the bolero, and more tailored pieces. But she will still be taking orders of her palazzo pants and other pieces, many of which can be seen on her website www.shopdennya.com