Island Of Misfits. Thom Browne AW22

May 2, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Thom Browne‘s jaw-dropping autumn-winter 2022 show added up to the pre-Met-Gala, statement-fashion buzz that’s going on all over New York right now. But Browne’s collection had little to do with Gilded Glamour (the theme of today’s gala), and more with another Metropolitan Museum Of Art’s fashion subject from a couple of years ago: Comme Des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo. Of course, Thom’s collections are always extraordinary, but this season, the signature gray wool suits went Comme – meaning conceptual, statuesque, big. And this is a major compliment for any contemporary designer. Giant yarns made up knits, some looks were pleated to resemble a slinky, and one preppy sweater was molded into a literal ball. It was all densely layered and piled up on precarious heels composed of schoolhouse blocks spelling out T-H-O-M-B-R-O-W-N-E. Then came the toys, where you could only giggle at the ballooning proportions of a lobster look and at the mania of Browne’s craft. The loveliest dolls in the dollhouse were a teal diagonally striped prom dress and a similar gown-ish green column layered atop an oversize white button down. It wasn’t messy – Browne’s patterns always meet, his hems are always tailored to immaculate precision – but it looked like it had lived a little. According to the designer, this collection is about New York as “an island of misfit toys” and the way people come to the city “to find themselves and to create themselves,” he said. The line-up was presented as a Ted Talk – cue the pun – led by model Rocky Harwell dressed as a Thom Browne teddy bear to an audience of stuffed teddies in little Thom Browne suits. Well, this is definitely one of my favourite TB collections in a while!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Witchy & Whimsy. Anna Sui AW98

April 10, 2022April 10, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Anna Sui‘s charming 1990s and early 2000s collections made the kids who these days love and embrace the arty-crafty, slightly goofy, very witchy, highly whimsical aesthetic – which got additionally intensified by such it-girls like Ella Emhoff and, of course, the power of TikTok. The autumn-winter 1998 line-up by Sui seems to capture all things which are suddenly (re)loved in 2022. The collection was inspired by fairy tales, but also nodded to all the great illustrators of the 1900s. At the time, the designer had seen an exhibition in London about the Victorian fairy tale illustrators that included Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen. “It was the most incredible and really moving exhibition that I had seen in a long time, and I just kept looking at those pictures, so then I thought, OK, I’ll do a collection like that“, she recalls to Vogue. The runway looks were all like a kid’s version of dress-up – “with the cowboy with the big badge, and oversized hat, and chaps that were all studded” – as if you were taking stuff out of the trunk and putting it on. All the animal hats and everything came from looking at Walter Crane drawings of frogs and bears. “I just thought it’d be really fun to do it almost from a kid’s perspective and make those into faux fur hats, so I called the milliner James Coviello and said, ‘We have to make these teddy bear hats.’ And I showed him a picture of one of the girl bands at the time that had knocked the stuffing out of a stuffed bear and made a hat out of it. I said, ‘Let’s do a fairy-tale version of this.’” And then, with Erickson Beamon, Anna came up with the crowns, which became instant hits. In the collection, there was also a whole series of the fairy-tale princess looks. “I just loved the frosted velvet that we made all those dresses out of. It was a stretch velvet in these frosted colors and then we trimmed everything with faux fur. There was a lot of it throughout the collection. The show opened with those black and ginger folkloric dresses trimmed with faux fur fringes. And then we did inside out faux fur, like there’s that jacket that Amber Valletta’s wearing, which we trimmed like Lapland clothes.” Looking at the collection today, it just feels so amazingly dreamy and so, so desirable. Every single look is relevant – especially in contemporary times where all aesthetics and subcultures become one big, eclectic melting pot.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Arcadia. Ralph Lauren SS03

April 4, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

As spring is approaching, I’ve got one collection on my mind: Ralph Lauren‘s spring-summer 2003 line-up. This one is like wine – it gets better with time. On the 20th of September in 2002, in the middle of New York Fashion Week, Lauren pitched an enormous muslin-draped tent, filled with white cushions, huge candles and twinkling crystal chandeliers – in the lush walled gardens of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Entering the building, the audience was met with trays of champagne, while the smell of tuberose and the strains of Erik Satie wafted through the evening air. If that wasn’t enough to induce a romantic swoon, the clothes would have done the trick. Lauren loves the womanly silhouette of the fin-de-siècle, with its nipped waist and curving hips. For spring he chose to highlight that silhouette with regal fabrics like damask, jacquard and silk moire, made into curvy jackets, bustiers and vests, and shown with creamy linen or silk trousers or light, pretty skirts. There were great leather pieces, gilded or printed with a wallpaper floral, and beautiful, skin-baring silk chiffon dresses. While Lauren makes no secret of his love for the past, that season he was resolutely modern: for evening, he showed a beaded top with a floor-length bustle skirt made from very distressed blue denim. This feels so good in 2022!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Big Feelings. Danielle Frankel AW22

April 3, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

I’m not into bridewear, but there’s one designer in this field that I always pay attention to. It’s been a year since Danielle Frankel, a go-to designer for fashion-forward brides, unveiled a new collection. Not a long time in terms of creative productivity, but a considerable hiatus by the standards of the fashion calendar. “When you’re talking about an evergreen product, you don’t need a collection every six months,” Frankel says. “These collections take so much to produce, and because the business is growing at the same time, we have to wedge in when we’re doing the development.” There’s certainly no shortage of clientele. Though she designs ready-to-wear as well as bridal, the latter is her bread-and-butter. She developed many of her brand signatures this season, including corsetry, bubble hems, and silk-wool pleated gowns. But everything is a bit bigger than 2021 collection‘s streamlined and sculptural offerings. “There’s a lot of the same DNA that you see in our work, but I wanted something a little bit more grand this season,” Frankel says. “Before we were known for those effortless, simple, cool styles, but for me it’s important to go bigger and move it forward.” Inspired by 1950s Vogue fashion illustrations, mid-century elegance, and surrealism, her new collection is photographed in a deliberately hazy way. Though this method of photography obscures the fine details of the clothing, it underscores the feelings Danielle hopes to evoke. That said, her designs tend to reveal themselves on the human form. The Leith gown, for instance, has a showstopping corseted bust that projects off the body and open back, but the pleats at the waist may just be the special detail that convinces the customer that this is the one. Hirsch also introduced several styles with Watteau drapes at the back, offering a more low-key kind of drama than the Leith does, while still delivering mid-century glamour. Aside from the fact that the most classic ballgown silhouette is hand-painted and hand-fringed in shades of brown, many of the tops Hirsch designed feel like true ready-to-wear. Paired with wide-leg trousers, the two bandeaus made to look like flowers are festive and relaxed.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Viable Garments. Commission AW22

April 2, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Commission, the New York-based label, is about garments, not gimmicks. For autumn-winter 2022 season, Dylan Cao, Jin Kay, and Huy Luong were thinking about non-American perspectives on America (all three designers were born and raised in Asia) and classic American fashion. Jeans, leather pants, Western belt buckles, and star-patched tees are the most obvious elements of Americana here. Look deeper than the hand-distressed unisex leather jacket, and you’ll find lush “cloud knits,” sporty tracksuits with blouson tops, trad office shirting with underbreast cut-outs, and a brown wool skirt suit with a schoolgirl vest inset into the blazer. A slash motif, which could read as a little try-hard, worked mostly well, exposing an ab, a clavicle, or a sliver of forearm. “It’s about an eclectic combo,” summed up Cao. Evocative layering made the brand’s separates look even more viable – especially in an asymmetric dress over pants look. The moment the designers posted a lookbook image it was swiftly consumed by social media, followers chiming in with “Aaaaaaaah!” and cascades of flame emojis. Sometimes, simple and straightforward clothes do the ultimate work.