What’s Hot (2.3.23)
Fashion
Beautiful Melancholia. Dries Van Noten AW23
There are those Dries Van Noten collections, where the designer isn’t really into his usual vibrant flower-garden moments, and goes for something definitely more somber, melancholic. The autumn-winter 2023 collection shown in Paris today is one of those moody Dries seasons, and I love it with my whole heart. The latest offering has a dark and Antwerpian quality about it, with its velvets and antique-looking embroidered silks patchworked into turtleneck tops and jackets in a deconstructed, Martin Margiela manner. In general, the collection’s beautiful garments have that feel of being well worn, as if time has been behind the sun-bleached look of the tapestry florals or the weather-stained fringed hems of the dresses. With this line-up, Van Noten also reminds us that he’s a master colorist: the delightful palette of ochre, burgundy, maroon and lilac are here to inspire our wardrobe next autumn. There was also gold: sometimes super-polished, sometime crinkled on the waists of the coats. It was very kintsugi – the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. In a world that needs lot of repairing to be done, why not wear this gorgeous Dries Van Noten collection?
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Chic, No? Saint Laurent AW23
Anthony Vaccarello‘s work at Saint Laurent has reached new levels of creative success since the designer started to read the YSL glossary and began translating its nuances and quintessences into contemporary interpretation of painfully hot, Parisian chic. The autumn-winter 2023 collection, presented on an elevated, chandelier-lit runway that looked exactly like the one on which Yves presented his shows in the 1980s, focused on a look as simple (and eternally good-looking) as a masculine, big-shouldered jacket worn with a pencil skirt. This power-look came down the runway in various fabric and silhouette iterations, nearly always kept in black or white with pops of tartan plaid or earthy brown. Some of these sharp blazers evolved into flowing, floor-sweeping capes of silk or velvet (for the evening), or were nonchalantly wrapped with plaid scarves (for a rainy, Parisian day). There’s really not much more to say about the collection except for the fact it’s another impressive exercise of refinement coming from Vaccarello, and a very seductive, smart, and commercially-vital homage to the YSL legacy. In the voice of a Catherine Deneuve-esque Parisienne, “chic, no?“
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (1.3.23)
Runaway Bride. Vaquera AW23
Backstage at their Vaquera fashion show on the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee were talking about dreams and nightmares, and how they can become interchangeable as time goes by. “We’re excited about selling commercial things,” DiCaprio said. “But I think this season we weren’t afraid to make things that weren’t necessarily for sales, and to say that that is an integral part of our brand.” Take the fun silvery sequin dresses or the various iterations of the wedding dress. I mean, wearing Vaquera on that special day is quite a statement. Other non-commercial garments were the jeans studded with blunt-ended nails which reportedly weigh a couple of kilograms. Mixed in amongst those punkish pants were more readily wearable pieces in the form of army sweaters and nylon cargos, and a faded black leather peacoat and pants. In the early New York days of Vaquera, back when the brand had a more conceptual direction, they designed polo dresses with pointillist renderings of their designer heroes, Vivienne Westwood among them. She was present in their latest show via an updated version of her infamous “tit top” with twisted and tucked “nipple” details. She’s the proof that you can mix business and non-conformity.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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