STRANGE BEAUTY ☁️ #DACBE: This season, #DriesVanNoten spent the season thinking about how the restrictive, COVID-related conditions are affecting his team. “A lot of young people don’t go out anymore, they don’t see a lot of people. Touching each other, making love to each other… it’s changed. I think it’s a collection where you really feel what state we’re in, and what we’re longing for. That is the desire we wanted to explain: the frustration,” he mused. Shot by Casper Sejersen, Van Noten’s #AW22 film featured a bunch of models getting tactile in a big mansion in Paris. There were close-ups of three real-life couples kissing: two men, two women, and a man and a woman, who all embodied the designer’s genderless objective. More on the JOURNAL 🤍 #PFW #Paris #ParisFashionWeek #HenryKitcher #Tailoring #Genderless #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🕊 #collage by me, film stills from #DerekJarman’s “Garden”, music: “Watercolour Eyes” by Lana Del Rey.
STROBE 🚧 #DACBE: “I just went to Egypt, and they have those shapes, those beautiful shapes, and I thought if I did that as a Dan Flavin helmet, that would be so cool.” This is how #RickOwens summed up his out-of-this-world, ethereal #AW22 menswear collection. By combining the headwear profiles of Ancient Egypt with some adroitly applied Philips light bulbs, Owens created headpieces that doubled as lamps – “they’re all free-standing.” The on-and-off-again lighting meant that much of the detail was suppressed from the eye: what was left were elongated, hyper-masculine silhouettes with an alien twist. More on the JOURNAL 👽 #Paris #PFW #ParisFashionWeek #AlienAbduction #AncientEgypt #MinimalArt #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💡 #collage by me.
VIRGIL’S DREAMHOUSE ☁️ #DACBE: During his eight collection residency, #VirgilAbloh, who passed away in November 2021, turned the house of #LouisVuitton upside down and inside out. He made the exclusive inclusive. The #AW22 collection apparently marked the final segment of that arc, and in the set at least it appeared to come full circle. More on the JOURNAL 🌟 #ParisFashionWeek #PFW #Paris #AngelsInTheSky #DreamHouse #Menswear #ManFashion #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🕊 #collage by me, music: “Kiss of Life” by Sade.
TRAVEL SOMEWHERE 🌞 #DACBE: I have such a sweet spot for #Lemaire. I’ve said it plenty of times, and I will say it again: this is the brand that utterly satisfies me in the context of my personal, day-to-day style. #ChristopheLemaire and #SarahLinhTran just never disappoint me. For #AW22, the designers-slash-life-partners turned to the idea of “traveling somewhere” – something we all fantasize about in our harsh, pandemic reality. “Dressing up is a little bit like traveling,” Christophe mused. “You get dressed up, you go to someone, or you have a destination in mind.” More on the JOURNAL 🌝 #Paris #ParisFashionWeek #PFW #SoftMinimalism #MarkRothko #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🪴 #collage by me, music: “These Days” by Nico.
PARISIAN CROWD 🖤 #DACBE: This was one, big, star-studded #Ami collection. “We have done two digital shows and now we’re back. It’s a kind of resistance,” said #AlexandreMattiussi backstage at his #AW22 fashion show. The designer had the Métro on his mind: “It’s the only place today in a city where everybody is on top of each other. There’s an old lady, a guy coming out from a party, a guy who is on the way to work, kids, grandmothers, different vibes, different cultures. This is the only place where you don’t have the choice of who you will be seated with,” he observed. “It’s a democratic thing. And Ami is about dressing everyone.” In the label’s world, #IsabelleAdjani and Laetitia Casta commute too, and wear timeless clothes that draw heavily on the French wardrobe tropes. More on the JOURNAL 🚇 #Paris #PFW #ParisFashionWeek #BenAttal #ParisianChic #Brassai #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🎞 #collage by me.
POETIC OUTERWEAR 🤍 #DACBE: #HedMayner’s #AW22 collection exists in the space “between despair and ultimate hope“. The Israeli designer explained further: “But I am thinking about the space between you and the garment, layered and protected…you are in a bubble.” Mayner speaks like a poet and he designs like one too, operating instinctively and emotionally, more interested with how a garment will feel on the skin, move about the body, and imprint on a life than how cool it looks or how hype-y it is. More on the JOURNAL 🕊 #Paris #PFW #ParisFashionWeek #OuterWear #PufferJacket #Menswear #MansFashion #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🧡 #collage by me.
REFINEMENT 🕶 #DACBE: #UmitBenan, one of the best #Milan-based menswear (and not only) designers, focuses on uncompromisingly manufactured and painstakingly designed ultra-luxe clothing. For the #AW22 offering, modelled by the always-chic #GiovanniDarioLaudicina, some of the finest pieces included a workwear-inspired essentials (mostly in double cashmere) and investment tailoring. “At the end of day, I don’t want to mess too much with design. The emphasis is on great stuff, stuff that’s so great you want to come back and buy it again”. More on the JOURNAL 🌹 #MFW #MilanFashionWeek #Menswear #ManFashion #Tailoring #TimelessClassics #DACBECOLLECTIONS ☕️ #collage by me.
EMBRACE THE WEIRDNESS 🗝 #DACBE: For #AW22, #JonathanAnderson embraces all things “weird”, and aesthetically navigates between the 1980s (sparkly party dresses) and the now trending, early 2010s “indie sleaze” (metallic lycra jumpsuits). #JWAnderson is all about the “weird”. When Anderson detects weirdness, he is not repelled but stimulated: for him “odd” and “bad taste” hold creative opportunity. More on the JOURNAL 🍭 #Milan #MFW #MilanFashionWeek #WeirdCore #IndieSleaze #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🕷 #collage by me, music: “Which Way” by FKA Twigs and Dystopia.
IL NUOVO ABITO 🏔 #DACBE: Men’s #MilanFashionWeek has officially started! And here’s lesson number one: you just can’t go wrong with #Zegna. I know it myself – I’ve got a couple of my dad’s clothes coming from the brand, and really, this brand is not just timeless, but its quality is indestructible. #AlessandroSartori, Zegna’s creative director, embraces what the Italian brand stands for with every season, delivering absolutely desirable, refined and relevant investment pieces for a contemporary man. For #AW22, Sartori said he was presenting “il nuovo abito“: the new suit. Yet this collection represented something far bolder than that. More on the JOURNAL ❄️ #Milan #MFW #Menswear #ManFashion #Tailoring #WomenInLove #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🌨 #collage by me.
LESS IS (REALLY) MORE 🔗 #DACBE: It’s no secret that #VictoriaBeckham‘s brand had some rough time financially. Wisely, the company scaled-down to its main line, at the same time incorporating a lower price point and limiting the range of new products. Looking at Beckham’s #PreFall2022 offering, this new approach has a positive effect on the designs. Less is really more. We’ve got great, business-ready tailoring, a fine balance of neutrals and neons (Victoria certainly understands that a wardrobe has to offer different attitudes, depending on the wearer’s ever-changing mood), and languid dresses that come with sexy zip details and erotic cut-outs. More on the JOURNAL 🖇 #London #Tailoring #SoftMininalism #SoChic #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🔍 #collage by me.
UTILITARIAN ROMANTICISM 🐛 #DACBE: In his second menswear collection, #ErdemMoralioglu goes for a laid-back, streetwear-ish approach – something you rarely see in his often dramatic women’s offering. “Utilitarian romanticism” is how the #London-based designer summed up his newest creative venture. He has a point: in a world where people wear couture-house joggers to dinner, and even #Erdem surrenders to sporty dress codes, streetwear is really just daywear. “It’s a boiled fleece hoodie with a tailored, nipped jogger,” he said of the collection’s most informal look. Erdem’s men’s world has a relaxed, almost light-hearted quality about it - more on the JOURNAL 🪡 #LFW #Menswear #ManFashion #DomenicoGnoli #GoGreen #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💚 #collage by me.
ULTRA-LADY 🎀 #DACBE: There are those collections in fashion history that just get better with time. For a while now, I’m absolutely obsessed with #LouisVuitton‘s #AW10 – one of the best collections created by #MarcJacobs for the French maison. “And God Created Woman” announced the program, bringing up thoughts of the era of the young Bardot, of fifties-sixties wasp waists, and circle skirts. At the time, #MadMen was on everyone’s minds and TV screens (those were the pre-Netflix times…), and that same season, Miuccia Prada also went for the retro ultra-femininity. Jacobs’ collection was stark contrast casting-wise (lets not forget 2010 was peak time of the super-skinny-model standard) as the designer called on Laetitia Casta, Bar Refaeli, Catherine McNeil, Karolina Kurkova, and finally Elle Macpherson, all women whose physical attributes have acted as a disqualification for fashion show participation for years. More on the JOURNAL 🌹 #Paris #LadyLike #BarbaraPalvin #JuliaNobis #JessicaMiller #CircleSkirt #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💖 #collage by me, music: “Vaya con dios” by Kali Uchis.
Design & Culture by Ed 