“We asked ourselves what feels modern,” Lucie Meier said, while discussing her and Luke Meier‘s spring-summer 2023 collection for Jil Sander. All of Milan has gone sexy, but the Meiers have a different take on modernity. “We looked at clashing glamour into very simple workwear, our fundamental very simple pattern cutting and then doing things that are more eccentric,” Luke added. That might mean something as straightforward as cutting cargo pants in silk satin or as extravagant as pairing a strapless confetti sequined evening dress with sneakers. The Meiers have always incorporated craft into their work, but whereas in the past macramé and crochet gave their clothes an earthy sensibility, this collection had a shiny gloss – the glam factor. A tank top and midi-kilt were embellished with cloud-shaped mirrors, and the lineup’s single print was lifted from the L.A. street grid after dark, the turned-on lights making a graphic pattern. A knit dress was made using thick yarn with baked-in sequins, and there were feathers galore: peeking from the hem of a sleeveless cotton dress, wrapped around the neck, decorating the large clutch that was one of their bags of the season. Most luscious was the group of finale looks, whose excesses of sequined knit fringe bounced like jellyfish as the models padded down the gravel runway that was actually a chic garden. The only thing that didn’t feel right was the abrupt rain.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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