Goth & Fit. Rick Owens AW25

February 4, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

This season’s Rick Owens man is both goth and fit. He will show off his muscular torso while wearing a crop-top with padded, Nosferatu-sih shoulders. Tyron Dylan, Rick’s muse, looked like the yassified version of Count Orlock. The elongated, supernatural look was omnipresent in the autumn-winter 2025 collection. This time, the designer was interested in the idea of essentials. Cropped shearling sweaters and coats in black were cut up to the base of the rib cage, while double-face wool caftans in cream were cut down to the knee. Skimpy wide-leg shorts were (sometimes) made secure with thermal long johns of a type Owens only became an evangelical fan of after moving from California to Europe. “It’s about, How can I get rid of stuff and make the stuff that I really need as special as possible?’ And that is a good exercise when thinking about making clothes in the world the way it is today.” It was also a good exercise in showing clothes that, once acquired, you’d wish never to be parted from.

ED’s SELECTION:

Rick Owens Satin Wide-leg Cargo Pants

Rick Owens Drain T Paneled Cotton-jersey And Crepe De Chine Top

Rick Owens x Moncler Appliquéd Wool And Cashmere-blend Balaclava

Rick Owens Cropped Bleached Brushed-cotton Bomber Jacket

Rick Owens x Converse Drkshdw Dbl Drkstar Canvas High-top Sneakers

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Soldiers Of Love. Comme Des Garçons Homme Plus AW25

February 2, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

For the second season in a row, I had the unbelievably beautiful experience of seeing the Comme Des Garçons collection IRL, at the brand’s showroom near Place Vendome in Paris. It’s always quite a striking contrast: first you’ve got to cross all the bling-bling flagships, from Cartier to Van Cleef & Arpels, and then you suddenly immerse into the world of Comme. And if you’re lucky, Rei Kawakubo, the mastermind creative and founder of the brand, stands there, just behind the glass wall of her office, keeping her finger pretty much everything this company stands for. Really, not many 82-year old designers of her status are that present in their brands. Actually, not many designers of any age are THAT present in their brands.

Visiting the Comme Des Garçons showroom lets you truly understand Kawakubo’s clothes. Of course, attending the label’s fashion show is a dream, ranked high up in my wishlist of things to do. But at the showroom, you can see the garments upclose, feel their emotional deepness, and be struck by their extraordinary craftsmanship. Sharing the space with the designer herself adds a TRUE Benjamin-esque aura to it, too.

The autumn-winter 2025 collection from the menswear Homme Plus line had a loud, clear statement: “To hell with war”. Confronting the reality that young boys and men are being called up for army service, being sent to kill or be killed by countries across the world, can easily fall dumb-flat in case of fashion. But not when Kawakubo does it, so poignantly and movingly. And in any case, her position was straightforward: her young Comme soldiers are peaceniks. Their metal hats self-decorated with flowers or wrapped in fancy, vintage fabrics felt naive, but in a heart-warming, hopeful way. In their deconstructed field jackets and brass-buttoned army officer’s uniforms, they were “soldiers of love”, as Sade once sang.

Rebel and resist. For love, beauty and freedom. Rei, you’re a force.

ED’s SELECTION:

Comme Des Garçons x PHILEO Melted Derby Shoes

Comme Des Garçons Oversized Gabardine Leaf-Print Sport Coat

Comme des Garçons Pleated Wool Grain De Poudre Midi Skirt

Comme des Garçons Ruffled Wool-blend Jacket

Comme des Garçons Ruffled Cropped Shell Straight-leg Pants

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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French Men. Fursac AW25

February 2, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Nobody understands French guys’ style like Gauthier Borsarello. Since his appointment in 2021, the designer – and avid vintage collector, just check his ReSee selection! – has worked relentlessly to redefine Fursac’s position in contemporary menswear. This season he presented the brand’s first runway collection: an utterly chic mix of great tailoring with seductive nonchalance (dialed up with unexpected details like yellow leather gloves or crotchet ties), so natural to Parisian men. Executed with the styling help of Imruh Asha, the collection plays with the style images of renowned Frenchmen: think Jacques Dutronc, Alain Delon, and the boys of Nouvelle vague.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Gesture. Hed Mayner AW25

February 1, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

“The gesture allows the clothes to exist,” said Hed Mayner backstage at his autumn-winter 2025 fashion show a week ago. How true this sentence is. You can have the most finely made garment in the universe, but if it just hangs in the closet, does it even matter? Clothes need a person’s gesture to be alive. But some clothes work harder, and once they are given life, they in return transform the wearer’s body language.

Of all contemporary menswear designers, Mayner balances utility with beauty of clothes in the most supreme way. And his new season perfecto jackets, leather pants and fringed shawls not only make you want to wear them, but also gesticulate in them – a lot. The fit of his over-sized wool-felt coat is so graphic and bold it creates a real silhouette. Same can be said of the sharp, yet round-edged plaid tailoring and meaty-velvet culottes. I can totally confirm what I’m saying, as I had the utmost pleasure of trying some of these garments in the label’s showroom. They truly transform your stature, give confidence, but at the same time seamlessly convey this “don’t bother me” attitude, just like Yohji Yamamoto’s designs.

ED’s SELECTION:

Hed Mayner Oversized Hooded Bomber Jacket

Hed Mayner Oversized Terry Sweatpants

Hed Mayner Inverted-Lapel Oversized Sport Coat

Hed Mayner Large Inverted Pleat Pants

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Séducteur. Saint Laurent AW25

January 29, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Yesterday in Paris, a flock of Saint Laurent séducteurs marched down a chandelier-ed runway. These men looked as if they teleported themselves from early 1980s to 2025. Anthony Vaccarello reimagines YSL menswear just the way he does in case of womenswear: via narratives and tropes connected to Yves’ life. A catalog of a 1983 YSL men’s collection which Robert Mapplethorpe photographed, with chiselled features sitting atop double breasted blazers, natty three-piece suits, and ties knotted with a firm hand, was the starting point. Mapplethorpe’s hardcore-leather-dom spirit was all over the wader boots and black trench coats. But another man in Saint Laurent’s life seemed to be omnipresent in this collecion: Helmut Newton and his vision of masculinity, often overlooked when compared to his women. Just look at the broad-shouldered suits that walked the runway, and then at the super-confident Parisians and cold-eyed Berliners captured by Newton for the pages of Vogue Paris.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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