One Night Only. Chanel Resort 2024

May 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

For its resort 2024 collection, Chanel took us to Los Angeles – the Paramount Studios lot to be specific. With stars including Margot Robbie, Kristen Stewart and Marion Cotillard lighting up the front row, and a post-show performance by Snoop Dogg, this was a very Hollywood affair. Ahead of Virginie Viard’s show, movie billboards promoting it as a “One Night Only” event went up around town, making an explicit point about Chanel’s embeddedness in LA’s dominant culture (a 30,000-square-foot Chanel store, the brand’s biggest in the U.S., opened on Rodeo Drive last week). As a matter of fact, Viard didn’t look at the silver screen or the red carpet for inspiration, but to what appeared to be a more quotidian example of Los Angeles: the Venice Beach boardwalk, a see-and-be-seen playground for roller skaters, weight lifters, beach bunnies, and epic sunsets. “I thought let’s do Jane Fonda, Cindy Crawford – all our heroines,” she said at the “accessoirsation” of the collection. “There are jeans, a more aerobic feeling; every show is the occasion to do something we’ve never done before.” Viard’s stamp is the more feminine, youthful hand she’s brought to the house since taking over as artistic director in 2019, but the sporty vibe of the collection, with its leg warmers, wedge heel sneakers, running shorts, and swim tanks, plus the occasional skateboard, was something new. Not every look was a success, though. Still, think of it as a Chanel look for a star’s every occasion, including, in a serendipitous bit of timing, Robbie’s upcoming press tour for Barbie, which is shaping up to be the movie of the summer.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Clothing That Has Life To It. Maryam Nassir Zadeh AW23

March 26, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Maryam Nassir Zadeh skipped New York Fashion Week this season, and instead shot her autumn-winter 2023 look-book at her parents’ house in Los Angeles. Lately, the designer enjoys revisiting places and things she loves and seeing them afresh. “We got inspired by the idea of building a core collection, which we had never done before,” the designer explained. There were not-so-basic, quintessentially MNZ pieces aplenty here, from her signature backward pants to leather bombers for all genders, greatcoats to kilts, rendered in materials like pinstripe and corduroy. These are items that the designer still finds relevant after all these years and wants her customers to be able to come back to again and again. While going through the clothing archive she stores at her childhood home, Zadeh came across her RISD portfolio and pieces from her earliest collections. The garments and textiles she made back then didn’t just look relevant to her today; they reinforced her desire to get even closer to her work. “I really want to create textiles and make clothing that has a richness of texture and life to it,” she said. Some of the pieces, like a sash dripping with beads, are whimsical one-offs made using vintage materials; others, like an embellished stretch-lace bodysuit, will go into production. It’d look great with a pair of asymmetric laced leggings that have the special off-ness that defines the brand. In a reflective mood, Zadeh set her own pace this season. Post-lockdown, she mused, we have “a new relationship with the times, and it really has to do with things being fast. I don’t think I have to do what everyone’s doing and be so fast; sometimes doing less is just so much more. That’s where I’m at.” Going forward Zadeh will present her collections publicly by choice. The nostalgic turn her work has taken is connected to her belief that what you need you can find within yourself. As she put it: “Some things are just part of you, and some things are where you start, and then even if you go far, you still arrive back to where you began.” Zadeh’s collection might be fragranced by déjà vu, but it has the potential to take you places you haven’t yet been to.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Looking For America. ERL AW23

March 18, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

There is no other brand like ERL. By that I mean no one dissects the codes of Americana like Eli Russell Linnetz. And nobody in fashion does theatrics like the Venice Beach-based designer. The authentic, evocative story-telling, which is a combination of ERL’s convincingly vintage-y clothes and the brand’s unique cast of models, just can’t be faked. The designer’s story for autumn-winter 2023 season follows a family that strikes it rich after traveling the Oregon trail, then falls into dysfunction and deterioration across the generations. The zine, which Linnetz titled “Greed: The American Gold Rush“, opens with “pioneer chic” dresses in drab checks and a red bandana print and ends with a Wall Street descendent living through the housing crisis of the 2020s in a football jersey with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest, planning his own demise. It’s a dystopian view of the American dream, reinforced by the use of imagery from the film Easy Rider – tagline: “A man went looking for America. And couldn’t find it anywhere.” But the collection isn’t as dark as the tale Linnetz tells with his photos. Though there are T-shirts printed with the words “Rent Me,” he wears his generation’s pessimism lightly. He’s too fascinated with the major and minor arcana of American life – from the stars and stripes of the flag on down to swap meet sourced vintage prints and the 1970s phenomenon that was iron-on T-shirts – to be truly negative in his outlook. A click through the images will tell you that this is actually Linnetz’s most upbeat collection yet, and not just because he devoted a chapter to the psychedelia of the 1970s, with flower children printed parkas and snowpants, and airbrushed T-shirts in cotton that feels likes it’s been loved and lived-in for years. He had fun with his Wall Street-wear too, collaging classic menswear plaids with surfboard illustrations by the legendary surfer Gerry Lopez on jackets and coats. The back of the coat is DIY’d with one of the 50-odd iron-ons in the lineup. Linnetz pointed to his experience collaborating with Kim Jones at Dior Men for his push into tailoring, and said there will be more of it in upcoming seasons.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Los Angeles. Versace AW23

March 11, 2023March 11, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Versace skipped Milan Fashion Week this season to show at a later date in Los Angeles – just a couple of days before the Oscars gala. On the roof of the landmark Pacific Design Center, Donatella Versace presented her autumn-winter 2023 vision: a wardrobe for Versace heroines and Versace bad boys, seen through a captivating, LA lens. “I mean I love this city, I love the people, the laid back vibe, the atmosphere,” the designer said. To set the tone for house’s destination show, Versace circled back to a pivotal mid-’90s moment. Easily the most prominent inspiration images on the moodboard for the collection were Richard Avedon’s 1995 images of Kristen McMenamy. The chic skirt suit that McMenamy wore in those photos was tailored close to the body and replete with the brand’s signature gold buttons. “I wanted to go back to the cut and shape of the clothes, to concentrate on the perfect little black dress, the perfect black suit,” Versace said. Gigi Hadid opened the show dressed in a look that echoed those elegant proportions. Naomi Campbell took her turn on the runway in an ankle-grazing black dress with an embellished bustier. Jill Kortleve wore a hot, shoulder-padded LBD. There was also Ivan De Pineda, the ultimate Versace man, wearing a croco-embossed trench coat. For celebrities that were still shopping for Oscar dresses, there were options aplenty. Some of the standouts: a crystal-encrusted naked dress that called to mind a modern Marilyn Monroe, a slinky black chainmail number with sculptural floral embellishments, and va-va-voom interpretations of the cone bra worked into various hourglass shapes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Hollywood Glow. Rodarte SS23

November 3, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

For Rodarte‘s spring-summer 2023 collection, Kate and Laura Mulleavy harnessed the theatricality and glow of live performances into a lineup of dresses and sets that balance fluid shapes with busy prints and intricate, rich textures. Alongside rainbows of psychedelic swirls – which take shape across bias-cut chiffon slips – and velvet burnout silhouettes, you will find a range of high-shine threads and embellishments with a light-refracting quality that adds striking dimension. “We were really wanting to feel something that was really vibrant and alive and about lighting and connectivity,” said Laura. A sense of ease and lightness was achieved on an entirely hand knit purple gown with long sleeves and a contrasting orange trim on the hem and cuffs. The yarn was made from a material “that almost looks like saran wrap,” Kate concluded. “No one believes it will be, and that’s what’s so cool about it. It’s very shiny.” They used the same fabric to create little skirt suits worn with matching cropped tops; one in shades of green, and another in orange and pink. The concept of light – both in terms of weight and illumination – played an important role in the collection. Metallic details abounded in fabric construction and embellishments, bringing into play the light that surrounds the garment as an added accessory. “All of the materials are in some way reflective of light. Even the lace has a sheen on it,” one of the Mulleavy sisters said. “So what’s interesting is that you see them differently depending on the angle at which you are looking at them.” This were manifested in straightforward ways, as in some of the looks in the second half of the collection: holographic sequins on an architecturally draped asymmetric gown; silver sequins on a spaghetti strap tunic and flared trousers; silver fringe on a Nick Cave-esque (the fine artist, not the musician) long sleeve cropped top and matching trousers; and gowns with mosaics made from small mirror shards. “We’re starting to see the red carpets open back up again,” said Laura. “I feel like there’s no version of us as designers at Rodarte if there never was a red carpet. We’re in Los Angeles, and it’s one of the thrilling aspects of designing eveningwear. If you design a gown, you want to see it out there, that’s the beauty of it.” But the Mulleavys know that the magic of their clothes is that they can impart that same feeling to anyone that wears them, no matter the place.