Fly Like A Butterfly. Collina Strada SS23

September 11, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

At Collina Strada, Hillary Taymour was in a celebratory mood (like many designers in New York seem to be). Hari Nef opened the show, wearing a dainty, lace-trimmed slip over wide-leg plaid trousers, her arms fluttering up and down like so many butterfly wings. Bedazzled on the front was the phrase “Got milkweed?,” an environmentally friendly take on the classic Got Milk? ad campaign of the ’90s, which also happened to be the name of the collection. Milkweed is the only plant monarch caterpillars will eat. Fittingly, the show took place at Brooklyn Greenway, a former cemetery turned monarch butterfly preserve that’s not open to the public. Taymour’s signature playfulness and Y2K influence were certainly present, but there was also a tender touch (some of the models wore extra-long braids that dragged on the floor behind them as they walked, like a Rapunzel that never had to cut her hair off to find freedom) and a mix of romanticism that resulted in some truly elegant eveningwear options. A floral lace–crocheted long-sleeve gown was worn underneath a structured bustier minidress with an exaggerated balloon skirt—a fantastic continuation of the exploration of panniers and bustles that Taymour has embarked on for the past few seasons. “I just feel like now that we’re a ‘trend,’ I really wanted to push it and be like, ‘We’re not just [sportswear],’” said Taymour after the show. “I can make these dresses for you and elevate it.” A carnation pink dress made from deadstock chiffon that hung from bent-wire flowers that attached to matching airbrushed pink breasts and nipples proved she could do both. She added, “I just wanted to push myself to do that.” Big cargos came in hand-drawn floral prints, crushed velvet, and even organza. Decorated jeans were part of a collaboration with Unspun, a company that 3D-scans the body in order to create made-to-order denim. She also debuted a collaboration with Virón featuring shoes made of upcycled materials, including ruffled velvet oxfords and chunky silver metallic boots, and a collaboration with Melissa on supercool and weird puffy sandals, which she paired with tiny satin ballerina-style socks that perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the collection. In the show notes, Taymour describes being inspired by “the butterfly’s symbolic cycle of life, death, and rebirth,” but with clothes like these, Collina Strada will thrive forever.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Sensuality. Proenza Schouler SS23

September 11, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

The Proenza Schouler boys are delving into new territory this season – which, by the way, marks the brand’s 20th anniversary (yes… time flies). Arca, the trans musician from Venezuela, opened their show in a loose black tank whose hem was pulled over one shoulder, revealing white silk fringe over her bare midriff and a bubble skirt. From there Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez explored Latin flourishes, like flamenco ruffles peeking from the hems of generously cut bell-bottoms, polka dots of varying sizes decorating twist-front dresses, and piped bell sleeves that extended past the knees. In the past, they’ve tended to cite travel adventures or their tight circle of girlfriends as influences. But after the show, Hernandez wanted to talk about his roots. “I leaned into my Latin identity; I’m Cuban,” he said. The models wore their hair slicked back wet, and their skin was dewy. They looked as if they just stepped off a dance floor or climbed out of the sea. With videos of waterfalls projected onto the marble walls of the venue, the collection felt closer to nature than last season’s chic austerity. Crochet separates, nipple-freeing sheer lace shirts and dresses, and compact knit pieces that seemed to take their cues from swimwear looked like the work of designers who’d like to hold onto a summer feeling for as long as they can. “We’re just talking about the idea of energy, of joy, of sensuality; these things that sometimes we feel are lost in our lives, to be honest, and we’re trying to find a way to get them back,” McCollough said. Twenty years is no small milestone. How do you sustain energy and joy when you’ve been at something that long? The designers tapped into it this season by working with a community of weavers in Bolivia. “We did it all via email and conversations over the phone,” said Hernandez. “We were able to make four pieces with them and employ them for six months. They were so happy.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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New York. Fendi Resort 2023

September 10, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Fendi got the New York Fashion Week rolling with a bang. For over a month, the Italian brand has been communicating that it’s planning to hit the Big Apple for a big occasion: the Baguette’s 25th birthday. And what made the eternal it-bag so in-demand for the last two decades? Of course, Sex & The City, the most New York show of all the New York shows. “It was almost like a character,” Kim Jones said. “So I thought let’s do the show here, and let’s add in a few curveballs as we always do.” Sarah Jessica Parker, who sat front row with Kate Moss, Kim Kardashian and Lily Allen, approved the project as the IRL Carrie Bradshaw. She was definitely making a mind-list of her favourite looks for the second season of And Just Like That. That Jones is a prodigious collaborator has been well documented, but the match-ups he orchestrated for the celebratory resort 2023 collection were particularly inspired. Tiffany & Co. was brought in to provide the baguettes – as in diamond baguettes. The double-F logo on the Tiffany blue croc Baguette carried by Bella Hadid was pavéd in the precious stones, and the electric colour of her silk jumpsuit was 100% Tiffany blue.

Another quintessential New York addition: the Marc Jacobs collaboration. Jacobs’s section riffed on his recent collections with block letter intarsias spelling out FendiRoma rather than his own logo on everything from tracksuits and trucker jackets and matching jeans to an oversize terry robe. The faux fur XXL hats, which we’ve seen the last time on his autumn-winter 2012 runway, wowed the audience just like they did a decade ago. “I called Marc up and asked him if he wanted to design a collection for Fendi. I haven’t been involved at all,” Jones explained the collab. “We worked side by side during fittings. We were doing ours, he was doing his. I’m looking very much at 1997, and I think Marc’s is fresh and now.” Jones was after more of a feeling. “I was thinking about when I was first coming to New York and we would go out clubbing,” he said. Hence the irreverent, high/low mix of sequins and utility jackets, or a shearling sherpa and a mini. He meant what he said about utility. Even beanies and gaiters came with built-in Baguettes, as did many of the garments, those shearling sherpas most temptingly. Surprisingly, it all felt very early Sex & The City and Patricia Field style. For the kicker, Linda Evangelista, who is the current face of Fendi, glided out, resplendent in an opera cape, with a sterling silver Baguette bag in the crook of her arm. Jacobs, who joined Jones and Venturini Fendi for a bow, encouraged everyone to stand up – not that the crowd needed any convincing.

Collages by Edward Kanarecki.
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La Piazzetta. Emilio Pucci AW22

September 6, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

True to her Italian roots, Camille Miceli called Emilio Pucci’s winter collection La Piazzetta, hinting not only at Capri’s famous handkerchief-sized hotspot, but also at the notion of the city square as part of Italian culture, a space open to communality and connections. These values and the idea of la famiglia, another established building block of the Italian lifestyle, are the drivers Miceli is embracing to charge Pucci with a bold new energy. For her second collection for the brand, Miceli drew from her own family and circle of friends – a motley crew of characters, talents, and generations – generously sprinkling it with her abundant joie de vivre. “My Pucci woman is an urban bohemian, she loves to travel, she’s in constant movement,” she says. “It’s the mother, it’s the daughter, it’s the grandma – as long as they enjoy life, they’re part of the community of Pucci.” Festive, bold, and colorful, the collection keeps all the label’s fundamentals alive, while introducing a few novelty notes to the mix. Knitwear was a new addition, offered in a rainbow-colored capelet with an undulating hem, or in a fringed hand-knitted, patch-worked poncho worked with horizontal intarsia. Miceli said that she was “happy to have achieved something that is Pucci, without being logo-ed by the prints in a big way.” She also used black as a thread throughout the collection, using prints as pipings, side inserts, foulard ribbons, and fringes, while widening the color palette with “some more options that reflect its character without being necessarily full-on printed.” Fringes are a Miceli signature, as they “bring frivolity to the garment,” she explained. They also give the feel of the energy and glamour that is the quintessential combination of the Pucci-Miceli connection. The Pucci woman, whatever her age, is on the move, going around in activewear-inspired zippered blousons in shiny recycled nylon printed and tiny pleated printed kilts, and weathering rainy days in protective hooded waxed ponchos boasting the lysergic Marmo pattern.

Parties are the Pucci woman’s natural habitat, and Miceli wants her to shine under the discoballs. Leggings with disco ruffles are a tribute to the effervescent charm of Raffaella Carrà, an Italian showgirl famous in the ’80s who reminds the designer of her teenage years. Miceli’s affinity for the label’s high-style bohemia was conveyed in long printed chiffon dresses with ruffled décolletages, in more sinuous, body-con options wrapped in stoles, or else in leopard-printed satiny numbers – a new introduction as “Emilio only did zebra at the time,” said Miceli. Bravissimo!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Tableau Vivant. KidSuper SS23

August 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Look 21 in KidSuper‘s spring-summer 2023 collection – a half-realized, elusive portrait on a pink sweater and pale cords – was based on an original painting called Con Artist. It was one of 23 Colm Dillane paintings, which in turn inspired the 23 looks in his KidSuper collection that were auctioned off by Christie’s Lydia Fenet live during his show. As each model walked, the audience had its chance to bid. The big spender was Russ – a close friend of Dillane – who apparently walked away with several paintings including the night’s headline sale, The Girl That Breathes Life Into The Inanimate (Lot and Look 23). After a fierce bidding war, Fenet eventually banged her gavel after Russ’s $210,000 bid went unmatched. In total, the paintings ‘sold’ for $529,000. This was all in itself a piece of performance art designed ingeniously to stretch the boundaries of the fashion show as visual theater. Dillane said afterwards that as he’d prepared for his first on-schedule Paris show, he’d been to some others and had been struck by the divide between audience and subject. “And I was like, how do I get people to interact and participate, and make it an experience. And I had always wanted to do an art show as a fashion show. And thinking about participation in an art show, that’s where the auction idea came from.” The auction was designed to animate the fashion show through artistic intervention. It was clever, fun, and funny. Apart from the clues to the process we were subject to in the names of some of the paintings, Fenet – who is absolutely masterful at extracting serious sums of money with the lightest of rhetorical touches – was apparently representing an auctioneer named Superby’s. We got no indication of her commission. When the final painting – named The Finale – emerged stretched on its frame, there was a hole where the on-canvas face of one of its subjects “should” have been. A model’s painted face loomed through it. Just as Fenet’s gavel went down, the canvas whisked from the frame to reveal itself as the upper layer in her tulle pentimento dress. This show raised many interesting ideas, including the notion of clothing reproduced with original artworks acting as wearable editions of those pieces.