Author: Design & Culture by Ed

Surreal Beach. Schiaparelli SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

“People are coming to us as an alternative to the mass luxury houses,” said Daniel Roseberry said of his extraordinary take on Schiaparelli. “They’re looking for something really strong.” So that’s what he’s prepared for spring-summer 2022. Schiaparelli’s Place Vendôme salons were organized by room, and first up was Roseberry’s wildly imaginative bijoux of body parts – ears, nose, eyes, lips, pierced nipples, and so on – and leather bags embellished with the same. His exaltation of the human form also took the shape of a gold-dipped resin bib molded from a model’s torso and suspended from a chain. There’s an inflatable black leather bolero and matching belt, as well as an inflatable parka, complete with air valves; a fitted knit dress with raised details in the form of Salvador Dalí’s famous rib cage dress; and cone bras à la Gaultier every which way: in leather, denim, and silk arranged in swirls like the petals of a flower. The vibe, Roseberry said, was “David Lynch holiday.” Tailoring and outerwear, meanwhile, were classically cut, but treated to all manner of gilded body part baubles. Many of the cocktail numbers had their beginnings in the couture, including a pair of sublimely draped black silk charmeuse dresses suspended from gold chokers. A cropped but boxy bolero with outsize lapels had a different starting point, Roseberry said. It was based on the jacket he made for playwright Jeremy O. Harris to wear to the Tonys last month. The words Schiap Hotel were stitched around the hem of a densely embellished bathrobe. I’m off to the plage de Schiap.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Désir. Ludovic De Saint Sernin SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

On Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s runway, heat and sex are regular ingredients. For the young French pioneer of sex positivity in fashion, his steamy return to what the industry is calling “physical” shows was pulsating with a whole other layer of significance. “I feel like we were in such a digital world for like a year-and-a-half that it was really critical for me to reconnect with physicality and sensuality, in a way that you could almost grab it,” said De Saint Sernin behind his co-ed spring-summer 2022 fashion show titled “Désir“. He wove all of that pent-up tension into a collection that stretched tiny strands of leather into minuscule dresses and taut bodices equally across genders to eye-popping effect. “We wanted to showcase the artisanal feel of the collection,” he explained. “All these pieces are entirely braided, knotted, and laced by hand. There’s no sewing at all. It’s really body formatted.” De Saint Sernin has been well ahead of the generational game of blurring underwear with outerwear. His easy, elasticated-waist, pajama-like pants and shirts and leather bralettes are part of this. This season it also meant a semi-sheer smocking technique, used in dresses and shirts cut to cling and strain at buttons, and delicate, semi-transparent fabrics, like laddered knits. “Mermaid, California-gothic girlfriend” is how he described the inspiration for overtly glam transparencies in crystal-beaded fishnet: a one-shoulder dress, a couple of miniature sparkly sarongs. His two finale dresses hinted at either having been shipwrecked or wrecked from a long night of partying. De Saint Sernin has a burgeoning business in his flared jeans with eyelet-laced flies, shown again this season with split hems. The signature eyelet was also an unmissable feature on a black thong. It was, he remarked with a straight face, “just a little teaser,” because Pornhub sponsored his show, and he has a collaboration with the porn site coming next spring. Of course this makes complete sense. There’s just one thing the designer might consider for the future: inviting a wider range of body shapes to his model casting. Everybody want to look and feel sexy, right?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Red Carpet. Balenciaga SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Demna Gvasalia returned to Paris Fashion Week with his Balenciaga, and to all the others: game over. He won the week. Again, he’s a genius. “Well,” remarked Gvasalia, with a considerable amount of laconic understatement, “we needed something fun to happen.” For spring-summer 2022, he staged a fake red carpet celebrity-studded, movie-style premiere event and a real one. “I’ve wanted to do a premiere concept where the guests would be the show for many seasons,” he said. “It was nice to have a social occasion again. I hoped it would make people smile.” It was hysterical – in the best possible way. The regular fashion show audience was seated inside the Théâtre du Châtelet at 8 p.m., watching a big-screen livestream of the red carpet arrivals going on in a tent outside. Soon, it was clear that everyone was in on the joke: the familiar Balenciaga tribe of Demna’s house models, lining up to pose in character as celebrities; actual celebrities lining up to pose as models; celebrity models posing as celebrity models. Cardi B and Offset! Dev Hynes! Naomi Campbell! Juergen Teller and Dovile Dryzite! Ella Emhoff! Elliot Page! Isabelle Huppert! Live TV camera feeds zoomed in on faces, raked outfits, shoes, spiky boots, jewelry, and bags. Paparazzi bayed orders. Handlers moved people on in a perfectly performed real-not-real control of lens-hoggers. Inside, hilarity broke out. Numbered looks popped up on-screen. And everyone looked drop-dead glamorously amazing, each to their own, working gigantic gowns, severe-chic sequin columns, outsize black tailoring, skinny bodysuits, fan-pleated dresses, boas, oversized jeans, track pants, evil shades, angular printed-out loafers, monstrous cyber-goth platforms.

Eventually, Demna himself – in a full black face veil, hoodie, and jeans, brought up the rear. “It’s more like a music or movie business, in the way you can convey things,” he said. “I like exploring these borders.” That’s the attitude designers should have in 2021. What the Balenciaga audience didn’t know: the red carpet performance of the spring-summer 2022 collection was the buildup to an actual film premiere of The Simpsons/Balenciaga, in which Marge and Bart (not to spoil the plot) end up modelling in Paris. “Because I’ve always loved The Simpsons, for its whole tongue-in-cheek nature and the slightly romantic-naive side to it” he approached the producers without much hope that they would ever want to collaborate. “But in fact they did. They saw the blue show – the Parliament one – and liked it. Matt Groening’s been amazing,” he said. The fame of Demna and Balenciaga has spread all the way to Springfield. After this, who knows what worlds he’ll conquer next. Whatever he does, I’m in awe.

Collage – or rather fake magazine layout! – by Edward Kanarecki.