Julie Kegels has just won this year’s LVMH Prize and today opened Paris Fashion Week. The business is growing, the brand is evolving, and with that comes a whole new set of duties for the Belgian designer – home duties, that is. At its core, Kegels’ label has always had a distinctly domestic feeling. She loves exploring intimacy, often through the things that surround us and the way we live. Her woman is constantly caught between rushing and taking it slow. The lace-trimmed negligee is simultaneously done and undone; sheer underskirts are dusted with powder (who hasn’t had a make-up malfunction?), while she remains perpetually ready to leave, jewels already in place.

There is also Kegels’ very Belgian affection for trompe l’oeil and optical illusion. The tights have dropped crotches, the trousers seem to be slipping down, and dresses are abruptly cut in unexpected – and increasingly risky – places. This season, some are quite literally slashed as if by a serial killer. It is this kind of perplexing oddness that makes Julie Kegels’ work so intriguing: it constantly plays with what we think we are seeing, refusing to settle comfortably into any one category or definition.

All collages by Edward Kanarecki.

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