Fashion

Balenciaga‘s pre-fall 2023 look-book – made up of dressing room selfies – is a cleverly staged invitation for the customers to come back to the brand’s shops. And a reminder, much like Demna’s winter runway show in Paris, that the Balenciaga creative director remains one of the key architects of the look of contemporary fashion. The emphasis on exaggerated suiting, the embrace of couture-ish shapes, and the return of rave jeans – all of that is covered, just in time as the new season clothes start hitting the shops. Double-breasted black blazers were alternately puffed up with a layer of padding, or cropped at the hips, with the hems tucked under in almost makeshift fashion. A third was worn like a wrap, its buttons askew. Demna cut similar styles in glen plaids and checks. More so than the runways, Balenciaga’s pre-season collections are devoted to daily wear. And so there were oversize parkas, peacoats and trenches with more of those folded under hems, fluid velvet sweatsuit separates in surprising pastels, and denim in both raver proportions and a newer skinny cut lopped off at the knees. Standing in for the dramatic evening dresses in the March show were a couple of full-length looks in a quotidian key, one dress in a body-conscious knit and a shrunken logo hoodie and matching ankle-length skirt in what looked like stretch velvet. The accessories game is strong too: Le Cagole comes in sportier shapes, and Pantashoes are revisited in Margiela-esque fishnet overlays.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Christopher John Rogers has emerged from the pandemic at the top of New York’s young generation of designers. In his rainbow stripes and grids of colorful polka dots, he’s found strong, identifiable signatures, which is an important element of brand building that not all emerging talents understand or are capable of. The uptown, put-together polish of his clothes is another distinguishing factor. Many of his peers practice a scrappier, dirtier, more underground kind of fashion. His garments feel at ease on the red carpet. “I love being with a model and draping, or doing research, or really thinking about fit, about fabric, about texture, but I feel like only 10 to 15% of what I do is making clothes,” Rogers explained. “In some ways this collection was informed by wanting to go back to that essential feeling.” The sleeveless top and ball skirt of the first look suggested a new direction – as @londongirlinyc put it, very Carrie Bradshaw style, pre-And-Just-Like-That. To start, they were all-white, and then there was the off-kilter, undone aspect of their construction, but they were red herrings. Rogers quickly found his way back to the bright color and unbridled exuberance that are his hallmarks. The graphic stripes he’s known for were joined by similarly bold florals in the vein of Warhol’s daisies; a pair of evening dresses in black-and-white polka dots of varying sizes and overlays, both of which are definitely red carpet-bound; and going-out tops constructed like oversize birthday present bows. Rogers does a good business with knits. This season, he played with chunky yarns and thick, cozy layers, or fine gauges, though in both cases, he styled them to expose a flash of décoletté or midriff. On the opposite end of the texture spectrum were an elegant fitted button-down and matching long skirt and a pantsuit in a shiny material he likened to Glad garbage bags. “It’s this really amazing fabric that’s actually coated taffeta,” he said. To finish, there was a group of black looks, including a panniered ball skirt and a draped top with the romance of the opening outfit. Success begets success, and as Rogers’s business grows he’ll face ever more pressures and responsibilities that keep him from the design studio. The industry can be uniquely hard on promising newcomers, putting them in a box at the same time we demand they grow and evolve. But if that draped top and ball skirt can tell us anything, it’s that Rogers is as committed to the dream of creation as ever.