What’s Hot (16.1.24)

January 16, 2024January 15, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Men’s – Prim And Perverse. JW Anderson AW24

January 15, 2024January 17, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Jonathan Anderson said in his autumn-winter 2024 preview: “Eyes Wide Shut is one of my favorite films, and I actually think it’s a great Christmas film.” It was, however, two viewings last summer that led to this JW Anderson collection. “I’ve never made anything about a film before,” said Anderson. “This is also the sexiest we’ve ever gone – as far as I can go.” Fashion world has a great affection for this Stanley Kubrick fim. Lately, Puppets & Puppets had an entire collection dedicated to this spicy romance-thriller. In case of Anderson, the result was a diverse design range, spanning from prim to perverse: both in menswear and women’s pre-fall, at moments in a Prada-ist manner (fun fact: in the 2000s, the Irish designer used to work around Prada at Brown Thomas in Dublin; there he met Manuela Pavesi, Miuccia’s right-hand, where she consulted the brand’s merchandising). For the collection’s hero print, Anderson contacted Christiane, Kubrick’s widow, regarding her paintings that the director used in his films (including A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut). These paintings were what spanned the triptych knit jersey dresses: other pieces featured a portrait of a family cat, a pot plant with a barcode still on its tub, and a car interior. Said Anderson: “I thought what was interesting is the psychology of this idea of bringing someone from the background to the foreground.” This was about as literal as Anderson got. The collection contained neither Christmas trees nor masks – although Nicole Kidman was on the soundtrack, delivering the near-to-last line of dialogue – however a palpable spirit of twisted bourgeois eroticism ran through the darkened runway as fil rouge. Red, with all its implications, headlined in an oversized velvet evening jacket for men. The jacket’s womenswear counterpoint was a red velvet jumpsuit with one disordered, asymmetrically cut leg that seemed at the intersection of sleepwear and evening wear. Anderson’s own recurring predilection for shorts was satisfied afresh via some wonderful rib knit pieces – sometimes partnered with cardigans, sometimes not – from whose edges oozed suggestive, unsettlingly domestic whorls of satin. Dressing his female and male models in tights over panties gave a less figure-skating aspect to the trophy underwear trend.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Synthetic Environments. Prada AW24

January 15, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

“In this moment you can’t avoid talking about subjects that are relevant. For instance, nature.” As Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons jointly explained, the thinking behind their Prada autumn-winter 2024 menswear collection was intimately entangled with the notion of our natural environment – how we are insulated from it, and how to go back to it. Simons addeded: “Most people’s screensavers are nature but then at the end we sit in this very synthetic human made environment.” A menacing tension felt palpable once the models, dressed as corporate commuters, walked on the raised glass floor with a stream running through a meadow beneath. The patches of highland greens contrasted with the synthetic green of the wool caps worn on the runway. The collection itself consisted of ultimate classics of menswear, as Simons listed for “the businessman, the working man, the thinking man.” Most wore ties. The Prada twist was touches that subverted these safe spaces of identity, enticing the wearer to surround himself with nature. Narrow-fit raincoats, tweed chore jackets, three-button gray topcoats, and gold buttoned naval outerwear all offered a route outdoors. This was a Prada outing that offered safeness and quintessence, clothes-wise.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (15.1.24)

January 15, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Recreation. Bode AW24

January 14, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-winer 2024, Emily Adams Bode Aujla explores the evolution of athletic wear and character-building through the lens of American institutional sport and competition. The charming, vintage-y collection confirms once again that Bode could potentially head to Ralph Lauren in the future and be a stately successor of the all-American style. This season, the designer reimagines leisure and athletic apparel from the 1770s-1970s, and muses on sports and recreation being vital to our understanding of virtue, community, and history. Fantastic lace pieces were appliquéd with figures playing sports. There were colorful lurex sweaters decorated with field hockey sticks, knitted cardigans with intarsia basketball players, and a particularly elegant white silk jacquard with a tonal football print. The inspiration also manifested itself in more practical ways; like the handsome dark gray three piece suit; the waterproof, super-light zip jacket and matching pants decorated with patches; or the simple, unlined wool jacket inspired by the kind that football players wear to stay warm on the bench. Elsewhere even simple knit sweaters and t-shirts inspired by the design of hockey or football jerseys proved just as special.

Autumn 2024 also marks the third outing for Bode Aujla’s dedicated womenswear collection, and it’s worth noting that it’s developing into something pretty remarkable. Between the beaded 1920s slip dresses, the lavishly embellished knits and bra tops, the 1930s-inspired bias cut chiffon dresses, and super delicate (and super sexy) silk underpinnings and matching pointelle tank tops and panties, a sense of real pleasure and indulgence permeates her women’s clothes. Lately, there’s been lots of conversations regarding the ways in which women designers approach making clothes for women; oftentimes, the focus is on the fact that they design for women’s “real lives” meaning wearable, meaning comfortable, meaning suited for a wide range of bodies. Beyond all this, Bode Aujla is also tapping into women’s fantasies; their desire to wear beautiful things just for themselves. If anyone happens to join in their fun, well, that’s a bonus.