Fashion

Anti-Fashion. Phoebe Philo Edit 2

| Design & Culture by Ed

Phoebe Philo‘s feverishly anticipated Edit 2 – second collection under her namesake, London-based label – is the perfect detox moment after the long, long, looooong fashion month. No gimmicks, no overstyling, no oversaturation of product, no… fashion. This is an anti-fashion line-up, one that absolutely focuses on style and gives real tools for building an intelligent wardrobe. That’s the real power of Philo’s venture, visually narrated by Talia Chetrit in a low-key, yet commanding way. Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest‘s actress Sandra Hüller stars in the latest campaign, sporting the line’s turtlenecks, tailored trousers and sharp eyewear. In her notes, Philo called the actress “one of the most accomplished talents of her generation, renowned for her intimate, intelligent and fearless performances on stage and screen.” This is a collaboration that only the stars could align.

The designer characterized her brand’s latest offering – available now in her on-line shop – “from the get-go as a continuous body of work”. If you look at the store, you will notice that images from Edit 1 are still up there, mixed with the new ones. This is revolutionary: we’ve got used to the fact that brands usually wipe out their entire websites every three months for new deliveries. The latest “edit” (the brand avoids the word “collection” in its elusive communication) experiments with proportions, setting a dropped-waist leather jacket in a dark berry tone against an ultra-cropped bomber in a mastic hue. We’ve got oversized trousers, doused in “salt and pepper” colors, and upright collared shirts button tight at the neck with raised collars. Double-breasted Milanese jackets flaunt the designer’s crisp tailoring expertise. As for accessories, the popular “MUM” necklace is back. Scarves are constructed as pillows, wrapping around their wearers’ heads with an avant-garde facade; and sunglasses, including the “Peak” and “Bombé” frames, make statements with face-shielding builds. Bags are Philo’s speciality, with the Cabas, Bean Bag and Drive Bag arriving in all sorts of finishes, spanning cheetah print and plushy purple to lipstick red and strong neutrals.

Honestly, you can’t imagine a better collection to review on International Women’s Day. Women rule!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Decade Later. Louis Vuitton AW24

| Design & Culture by Ed

The way time flies is crazy. I remember Nicolas Ghesquière‘s debut at Louis Vuitton like yesterday. But it was exactly a decade ago. 10 years is an eternity in fashion. Probably his first collection for the brand feels so fresh in memory because it was so distinct and sharp, so envelope-pushing. That can’t be said about every Ghesquière moment for Louis Vuitton, and definitely not about the autumn-winter 2024 line-up, additionally suffocated by the sci-fi venue production and the list of front row guests, with everyone from Cate Blanchett to Brigitte Macron. The designer was definitely looking back at key pieces from his Vuitton oeuvre. As strong as his design language is, the references were easy enough to spot. The jackets heavily embroidered with metallic threads and embellished with cabochon stones recalled the anachronistic frock coats of the Louis XVI collection for spring 2018 he presented in the medieval part of the Louvre. Sparkling skirts that bubbled below the knees seemed to be a callback to spring 2021, a pandemic-time show he staged without an audience. And the swirling asymmetric hems of the fringy evening numbers evoked the deconstructed scuba-suit dresses from his resort 2017 show in Rio De Janeiro. But while Ghesquière is a master of constructing the most innovative clothes, which he proved throughout his tenure at Balenciaga, I often feel like his Louis Vuitton lacks on ergonomics, especially in the way its (over)styled lately. If you’re not on a brand contract, do you really want to dress like that in 2024 with conviction?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Lady Girl. Miu Miu AW24

| Design & Culture by Ed

“Every single morning, I decide if I am a 15-year old girl or a lady near death“, Miuccia Prada told Vogue in her recent profile. Looking at her latest Miu Miu collection, Miuccia definitely felt like the first, but with perspective of an experienced woman who has lived a LIFE. It seems that while being 74 years old, the designer has never felt that liberated creatively. She knows her codes. She knows what’s up. She’s loves to mess it up, and she understands exactly how to make the industry fall on its knees.

Again, Miu Miu is the winner of Paris Fashion Week, and the impact of the autumn-winter 2024 – styled by Lotta Volkova – will be perceivable in the way we interact with fashion for the next six months (or more!). Classics, uniforms and bourgeois staples are twisted and subverted, creating a collection just so multi-faceted and frivolous that you just can’t resist it. The show opened with shrunken coats in heavy wool, worn with cuffed slacks, mum’s pearls, and a roomy zip-top bag tucked under the arm. Capote’s “Swans“? Not really. The man-size gloves suggested the Miu Miu girl sees the world through a different lens. She’s on the ground with her two feet. Even while wearing her short little baby-doll shift dress sprinkled with strasse embroidery and lady-like wool suits paired with grey schoolgirl tights and black leather Mary Janes. “Everyone can choose from them, to be a child or a lady”, said the designer after the show, which included some models who were nearer to the designer’s age including Kristin Scott Thomas and Dr Qin (a Shanghai-based doctor and huge Prada collector). 

This season, Miu Miu – which originally in the late 90s and early 2000s meant to be Prada’s sister line – has always been like a daughter, who sometimes hates her mother’s image, and sometimes looks up to her. By mother, I mean the Prada wardrobe. Silk 1950s skirts came in so-bad-it’s-good floral prints in the most acidic shades known to human eye. Even the family heirloom “mink” coats (they were actually dyed shearling) and the kind of chic LBD’s that Audrey Hepburn might have worn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” weren’t just classy, they were daring, they had nonchalance of a youngster. Miuccia, I love you!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Deauville. Chanel AW24

| Design & Culture by Ed

Virginie Viard presented a confident and absolutely charming collection, one that made even the biggest nay-sayers of her Chanel change their minds (even a bit). Inspired by Deauville, the town in Normandy that had a great importance for Coco Chanel’s career, the autumn-winter 2024 is a beautiful ode to its breezy, bourgeoisie ambience. In the 1920s, the brand’s founder started her business as a milliner in a shop in the seaside resort. Hence the symbolic connection Viard drew with the turned-back brims of the the sun hats. Her translations of Chanel’s earliest, revolutionary jersey signatures flowed into state-of-the-art modern knitwear in multiple versions of belted cardigan pajama-like trouser suits, and made sense of the ease of the house tweeds in long-line coats and, later, the fluttery, 1930s-via-1970s chiffon prints. All the cognac-brown shearling outerwear and suede boots are just so chic. It felt as if Viard had truly found an unforced connection with the original intention of Chanel – to make chic clothes easy for contemporary women.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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