Cannes made me think about time — not the tyranny of schedules, but the sensuality of knowing exactly when something will bloom. I wanted a woman who tends instruments and gardens with equal devotion, whose couture is literally made of the same material as her life's work. The Sundanese-Sicilian fusion gave me volcanic soil on both sides of her heritage, islands that measure themselves by eruptions and harvests. Melati Ferrante sounds like someone who could calibrate a chronometer at dawn and deadhead jasmine at dusk without changing her dress. — Vesper