Men’s – PharreLl’s Take. Louis Vuitton SS24

June 21, 2023June 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

In anticipation of Pharrell Williams‘ debut collection for Louis Vuitton, the actual meaning of a “fashion designer” became a big discourse on the internet. Do we even need a skilled designer when a brand like Louis Vuitton hires a big (and undoubtedly stylish) entertainment industry name instead? What we’ve seen yesterday in Paris was a show (more of a business-, than fashion-, noting the Grammy-like front row featuring everyone from Beyonce to Rihanna) in its purest sense. The Voice of Fire choir singing loud; the Pont Neuf and what seems half of Paris lit up and ready to accommodate the mega-event; the Jay-Z concert afterwards… and what about the actual clothes? There was plenty of merch, as well as true eye-candies, that’s for sure. But Pharrell seemed to approach the debut more like a styling exercise. A bit of Nigo and Kim Jones menswear sensitivity here, a couple of Wales Bonner and Bode touches here, a sprinkle of Virgil Abloh nods there. The Karl Lagerfeld-level ego was palpable as well (even a Chanel-like tweed jacket popped in one of the looks). As you might already know, the garments were heavily covered with the green pixelated Damier duds, and all sorts of LV monograms known to man. Of course, the most powerful of all were the accessories, the brand’s primary money-makers. Zingily colored Keepalls and Almas and Neverfulls and Speedys, worn in clusters. To be truly honest, the collection wasn’t neither bad… or outstandingly good. But it will definitely sell loads.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (21.6.23)

June 21, 2023June 17, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Berlinesque. Anonymous Club Resort 2024

June 20, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Shayne Oliver keeps on teasing the fashion industry with his next, creative steps. Since announcing the relaunch of Hood by Air in 2020, the designer has been teasing a number of projects: first was “Prologue,” the HBA capsule modeled by Naomi Campbell; then came a preview of his eponymous ready-to-wear label at New York Fashion Week in February of last year, followed by Anonymous Club, the elusive talent incubator he formally introduced last year. Coming soon is an art exhibition in Berlin, where he recently moved. These projects don’t abide by industry schedules. They arrive when Oliver is ready.

A year after its first drop, Oliver is back with the second installment of Anonymous Club, and with it some newfound structure. “I’m working to create more clarity, that’s part of what this campaign is about,” he said. He was referring both to this lookbook, shot at Schinkel Pavillon, which features the designer Stefano Pilati, a Berliner for the last couple of years, and to a campaign the label dropped last week on Instagram, which stars Telfar Clemens, Raul Lopez, and Patia Borja, who also appear in this slideshow as cutouts. “Anonymous Club is about friendship and camaraderie with people that share like-minded ideas,” Oliver said. The lineup itself is a tightly edited collection of staples with the Shayne Oliver twist in a limited color palette consisting of black, beige, and neon green. There’s the pagoda shoulders Oliver often presented at Hood by Air, his usual club-ready leather jackets and trousers, and a run of oversized utility jackets. More interesting are a t-shirt with its shoulders raised to hide the neck but sloped to the regular shoulder apex, and a flared skirt with two jacket sleeves as part of the front drape. To Oliver’s credit, as pervasive as the Hood by Air aesthetic he and Lopez introduced a decade ago is today, his clothes are imbued with a certain authenticity. The show-stealer in this lookbook is a three-headed chihuahua, a reference to Cerberus, the hound of Hades in Greek mythology that guards the gates of the Underworld. Oliver explains it came from a dark place: back in the HBA days, he felt in need of a watchdog to look over ideas and protect the “naive period in the creative process.” He feels similarly about Anonymous Club now. “Sometimes some aspects of things need to be protected for it to blossom into something,” he explained.

What’s Hot (20.6.23)

June 20, 2023June 17, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Men’s – Turning The Page. Giorgio Armani SS24

June 19, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Generally in 2023, and at the point of his career, Giorgio Armani is kind of punk. And appreciation his fashion – or rather, style – is punk, too. A blank page and a pencil: such has been the starting point of every Armani collection since 1975. Today, the Italian designer brought that moment of beginning to this collection’s moment of publication at his Milan showspace, via the pointed inclusion of an extremely large pencil at the end of his runway. Armani drafted his menswear masterpiece decades ago, but the cycle of fashion means that it is constantly subject to revisions, elisions, alterations, and edits; every season sees a new layer placed over the one before. The spring-summer 2024 one contained a direct reference to his very first menswear collection in the close up print of raffia weave used in roomy blousons, pants, and bags, but that archival gesture was not the point. “The collection surely recalls the past, without making it all about the past,” he said afterwards. The long, almost shirtlike cut of the light jackets had the same fluid elan of those famous pieces worn by Richard Gere so many years ago. And the four suits that closed this otherwise very holiday collection contained some silhouettes that any long-in-the-tooth Hollywood rep will fondly recall from his glory days. However you could just as easily conjure the image of this collection being worn by a new generation, in a new context, with stories of their own to tell.