Costume. Valentino SS25 Couture

January 31, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Let’s be honest: this haute couture season was brief and left you feeling hungry. Maybe it wasn’t a famine for beauty, as Andre Leon Talley liked to say. There was way too much beauty – of the conventional kind. Hundreds of metres of tulles, thousands of hours of handwork, millions of digital impressions. But to me, this couture signalled one thing: it’s a growingly archaic commodity. Gone are the days when Raf Simons at Dior presented absolutely contemporary-looking vision of eveningwear. Or Karl Lagerfeld showing couture sneakers at Chanel. This season painfully missed true fashion moments. There was absolutely nothing close to a spectacle like THAT last John Galliano collection for Maison Margiela. Demna shows couture for Balenciaga only once a year, in July, but I really wished he saved this season. In the meantime he wore a T-shirt while being awarded with the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. And a plastic bag to Alessandro Michele’s debut Valentino couture show. I feel him.

Speaking of that debut, it was a brief moment of high this season, but as Angelo Flaccavento very rightly observed, this was a parade of great, convincing costumes, but not that great clothes. In the end, haute couture is a form of very precious, very costly applied art that’s being worn – at least once in its lifetime.

Michele really showcased all the possibilities of the Valentino artisan savoir-faire. To such extremes it felt dizzying (as the show’s title, “Vertigineux”, suggests), even nauseous. Huge ball-dresses dipped in embroideries and embellishments, meaty lace, massive crinolines, sumptuous excess all over: this certainly could be a separate costume department for a Fellini film. Unfortunately, as it’s the case with costumes, they wear the wearer. This isn’t very couture.

So, if Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Bronwyn Newport ever wears anything straight from that runway, Britani Bateman has full right to question it as costume.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Séducteur. Saint Laurent AW25

January 29, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Yesterday in Paris, a flock of Saint Laurent séducteurs marched down a chandelier-ed runway. These men looked as if they teleported themselves from early 1980s to 2025. Anthony Vaccarello reimagines YSL menswear just the way he does in case of womenswear: via narratives and tropes connected to Yves’ life. A catalog of a 1983 YSL men’s collection which Robert Mapplethorpe photographed, with chiselled features sitting atop double breasted blazers, natty three-piece suits, and ties knotted with a firm hand, was the starting point. Mapplethorpe’s hardcore-leather-dom spirit was all over the wader boots and black trench coats. But another man in Saint Laurent’s life seemed to be omnipresent in this collecion: Helmut Newton and his vision of masculinity, often overlooked when compared to his women. Just look at the broad-shouldered suits that walked the runway, and then at the super-confident Parisians and cold-eyed Berliners captured by Newton for the pages of Vogue Paris.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Haute Refinement. Dior Men AW25

January 29, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Kim Jones‘ sensational Dior Men collection is exactly what happens when a designer is unburdened from another super-demanding job (meaning Fendi, the Roman brand where the British designer just couldn’t find his rhythm). This autumn-winter 2025 menswear collection was evidently thoroughly considered and planned, like an haute couture outing. The most stunning silhouette was either a trouser nor a skirt. It was a coat, worn backward, with the collar creating a kind of asymmetric cummerbund, the tucked-in sleeves forming “pockets,” and buttons running down the back. The silk-ribbon blindfold some of the models wore gave a pinch of extra-seduction. If only Dior womenswear was this good. Maybe when – as the rumor has it – Jonathan Anderson takes helm?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Awaken. Lanvin AW25

January 28, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

When the news broke that Peter Copping is taking Lanvin under his wings, a collective sigh of relief went through the industry. The absolutely talented designer, known for his deliciously refined stints at Nina Ricci and Oscar De La Renta, is a master of supreme elegance and chic femininity. And Lanvin – the oldest operating French maison – just needed a person like him after all these years of creative confusion that started since Alber Elbaz’s departure back in 2015. Yes, Lanvin was steadily falling into oblivion for a decade.

Peter’s debut collection was a beautiful return to form – his and the brand’s. It felt like a much-needed moment of true savoir-faire – especially after the embarrassingly dishonest, faux-elegant Jacquemus outing (in which the designer knocked off everything from Pieter Mulier’s Alaia to Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta on the way) that took place just a couple of hours before.

The unquestionable success of Copping’s autumn-winter 2025 collection lies in the effortlessness with which approached Jeanne Lanvin’s legacy. There are no literal references to her 1920s silhouettes or archaic-looking eveningwear (a huge mistake both Bouchra Jarrar and Bruno Sialelli, Copping’s predecessors, did during their blurry tenures). What’s present is a sense of understated modernity shaped by artisan techniques, unpretentious tailoring and richness of materials (these velvets! those crushed-pleats!). The finale dresses – especially the gold number – are just what the red carpet needs today.

This is a great beginning of a Parisian rebirth.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Romance of Grunge. Magda Butrym Pre-Fall 2025

January 23, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Introducing Magda Butrym’s pre-fall 2025 collection: a romantic, chic take on grunge.

Captured by Robin Galiegue and styled by Jacob K, the latest lookbook embodies real attitude and powerful sensuality – two elements that deeply inspire the Polish designer. The collection’s gritty, tough-at-heart energy is contrasted with touches of Slavic romanticism, a defining hallmark of the label.

The pre-fall 2025 collection thrives on contrasts, weaving together baby-doll silhouettes and porcelain-inspired florals with utilitarian aged leathers and charismatic, menswear-inspired silhouettes. It’s a dialogue between the refined and the rebellious, proper and raw. This is the spirit of grunge: the courage to clash unexpected style elements and finding utmost pleasure in playing with taste conventions.

The collection’s fearless essence was sparked by the documented style of grunge icons: PJ Harvey’s breezy vintage shifts, Courtney Love’s stage slip-dresses, Juliette Lewis’ broken-glamour and Kora’s unorthodox manner of dressing. Real women inspire Magda Butrym, so it was essential for the designer to convey authentic attitude – not just in the spontaneous layering of a masculine black leather vest over a delicate sage-green floral chiffon dress but also in the models’ dynamic, lively poses choreographed by Pat Boguławski in the lookbook.

Beneath the grunge-inspired layers, however, lies a space for unapologetic elegance – in its own way an act of rebellion in today’s fast-paced world. Statuesque refinement takes shape in a semi-sheer evening gown crafted from wire-structured silk, evoking the soft, sculptural beauty of a blossoming petal – or the calla lilies immortalized by Robert Mapplethorpe, the maverick artist celebrated for his erotically charged and groundbreaking work. Polka-dotted noble silks, ruched dresses, billow-y skirts, and the cascading drapes of earthy, mocha-toned eveningwear embody undone femininity – a grunge perspective compellingly reimagined by the designer.

Magda Butrym’s enduring fascination with Slavic heritage is vividly present in the pre-fall 2025 collection, manifested through unexpected handmade crochet details. A semi-sheer crochet skirt adorned with floral doilies surprises with mini-pannier padding. Lace embellishes the bustier and hemline of a floral slip dress and peeks out from beneath leather shorts, while the grunge-inspired bride-to-be wears a white crochet veil. The collection also revisits the headscarf – a quintessentially Slavic code. Reimagined in butter-soft leather, knitted mélange, or faded floral prints, the updated babushka look exudes sharp, feminine chic.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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