Fashion

With resort 2024 collection, Rosie Assoulin celebrates the 10 year anniversary of her brand. Time flies! I remember seeing the New York-based designer’s first collections and being absolutely seduced by her playful approach to eveningwear (we officially said goodbye to body-con styles and the notion of a “cocktail dress”), her colourist sensitivity, and the charming quirk that defines her signature style and fresh take on femininity. Observing Rosie’s work today, you have the same impression as 10 years ago: she’s a designer that marches to the beat of her own drum, who keeps her brand relevant, yet attractively off-the-mainstream-grid. The New York-ness that oozes from Assoulin’s fashion also plays a crucial role in her aesthetic. There’s just something very Park Avenue about her statuesque, origami-like gowns with harp bustiers, and then you’ve got a pin-striped suit that’s so laid-back it would work perfect for both, the office and a run to your favorite bodega. Resort 2024 isn’t a literal walk down the memory lane, but it has all the Rosie signifiers – some that had its debut exactly a decade ago. The very-oversized look, featuring a white top with a trail on the back, styled with matching white flares, is comfortingly familiar. The watercolour pattern come in always-chic picnic gingham and Frenchie stripes. A print of orchid pops in a couple of places, and the floral theme is translated into draped brooches that do the Carrie Bradshaw work on the masculine blazers and coats. Can’t forget to mention the summer-perfect, water print: its makes me think of Alex Katz, David Hockney and Tom Wesselmann, a couple of colour-obsessed, pop-art artists Rosie loves and in whose oeuvre finds constant inspiration. Assoulin, one of the most independent designers in NYC, in whose studio such talents as Christopher John Rogers have made their first steps and evolved, creates clothes for a loyal fan base of women, who appreciate uncompromising joy and boldness in their wardrobes. Here’s to another 10 years of Rosie’s brilliant creativity and fabulous fashion universe!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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“We are continually evolving, it is about continuity,” said Glenn Martens regarding his process of reviving Diesel, and the democratic aspect of his resort 2024 offering. He added: “Perhaps more than anything I can say that what we did better this time was to take more carryover stories from the runway and industrialize them to create easier access price points for all of our stores and customers.” Another evolution, he said, was that his ambition to present Diesel collections as fluid, every-gender products on the shop floors has begun to manifest in certain flagship outlets – and that this lookbook was shot to reflect that. In other words, if February’s sultry, Durex-strewn Diesel show emphasized sex, then this follow-up collection was concerned with performance. The last-show iterations of Martens’ three Diesel pillars – denim, utility, and pop – were all harmniously diffused. Denim-wise, we saw the core material cut into jersey, leather, or bouclé panels on tough sportswear, trimmed with lace in easy-wearing little dresses, overlaid with oily or stonewashed color treatments, and used as a fabric for shoe uppers. The mainline collection’s intricate indigo dyed denim knits were reformulated in a fabrication designed to be color-fast as well as eye-catching. The designer emphasized that his foundational pivot to sustainability continues: “around 70% of all the denim here is produced through more sustainable processes,” he said. Elsewhere collegiate lettering on jerseys amusingly declared “Lies,” but this designer’s determination to green Diesel is no fib.