Paris

Radical Simplicity. Courrèges AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Courrèges isn’t a easy brand to revive. After all the reboots it went through in the last couple of years, the legendary 1960s Spage Age maison just didn’t resonate. Nicolas Di Felice is its new hope. The 37-year-old Belgian is a graduate of La Cambre in Brussels, and he’s worked in Paris for a dozen years with Nicolas Ghesquière at both Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, and Raf Simons at Christian Dior. A behind-the-scenes guy until now, Di Felice has a knack for research and a command of technique, two things necessary to take charge of a heritage brand whose hallmark, as he describes it, is “radical simplicity.” He says he arrived at Courrèges with armfuls of files and started fittings on day one. And that’s quite visible. There are no ridiculous sci-fi gimmicks here, and finally the entire collection doesn’t solely orbit around the signature Courrèges vinyl jacket. Some Courrèges classics are present, but what’s most important is that they look relevant. A white trapeze dress is modeled on the brand’s original, but with a stretch jersey bodice. Vinyl has been redesigned to be more eco-friendly with bio-based polyurethane and a certified organic cotton base; the high-collared coat he used it for has a powerful, streamlined fit. Summing up, Andre Courrèges’s futurism has been filtered through Di Felice’s child-of-the-’90s eyes. I would say it’s a relatively quiet, but confident debut. Di Felice’s Courrèges might find its client in 2021.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Dance It Out. Dries Van Noten AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-winter 2021, Dries Van Noten left the comfort zone of any kind of runway or simple look-book far, far behind. There’s something cathartic about watching rage, frustration, confusion, longing and separation being danced out on a darkened Antwerp stage in the film the designer produced. Naming the un-nameable feelings of lockdown life, it plays out in territory close to home, evoking both the Belgian fashion culture of the 1990s which Van Noten belongs to, and the visceral physical intimacy of how we relate to clothes. “I think we’ve passed the stage of pretending,” he said. “We’ve all gone through something really not nice together. There’s kind of a rawness and directness also – it’s real movements, it’s real emotions.” The film, under strict COVID conditions, was a pretty big production: a gathering of 47 dancers and models on the stage of the deSingel theater in Antwerp, filmed by the director and photographer Casper Sejersen. It’s dramatic and sexual, and we’ve got the most delightful Van Noten pieces, like glittery marabou-trimmed dresses, dark tailoring and print-splashed volumes. Maybe you don’t entirely see all the details, but somehow this isn’t a disadvantage – you certainly ‘feel’ those clothes. “It’s rare that I’ve seen so much emotional kind of things which have cropped up in the body. Nobody was just saying like, ‘Oh, let’s make a pretty move.’ I think one way or another, there was something on stage there that happened. You felt that people wanted to say something with their body, even the models, who after five minutes were dancing even better than some dancers. I think Casper really managed to put that into the video – you really feel that kind of intensity that everybody felt and shared in that moment.” In the digital age, the opportunity to show clothes in movement, in different situations, on different kinds of people, and getting at social situations way beyond the narrow conventions of shows has turned out to be far more exciting, he also adds. “Do we really want to go back at a certain moment to 50 girls in a row who are 16-, 18-years-old, with a perfect size? Anyway, for June and September I don’t want to even think about shows. I don’t know if I’m going to feel the need to do a fashion show. If we are going to do them, it’s not going to be in the same way as before. I think this time is over, and nobody has the need to see a circus like that again. I think there’s now a realness and intensity, with the videos and pictures, and the way that everyone is finding their way to express themselves. And I feel quite well with what we’re doing now.”

“Live” collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Gabriela in Paris. Chloé AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Most debuts are bumpy, epecially in COVID-19 circumstances. However, I can’t hide I’ve got some very mixed about Gabriela Hearst‘s first collection for Chloé. Knowing her style and philosophy at her name-sake, New York-based label, you could be sure she would take her sustainability-forward mindset to Paris (that was one of the main reasons why she was appointed as the creative director of the brand). Aesthetic-wise, we know her for ultra-luxurious, assertive minimalism with eventual, feminine details, but you will hardly find any irony in those cashmere cape-coats and gorgeous pleated leather dresses. Most of all, it seemed to me that the designer decided to revolt against the New York ‘Gabriela Hearst’ and let things take some sort of laid-back approach, in the spirit of the Saint-Germain-Des-Prés lifestyle (Chloé founder’s Gaby Aghion first fashion shows took place in Café De Flore. Hearst’s models walked out of the cult Brasserie Lipp into the empty, evening streets of Rive Gauche). The result is a collection filled with layered, nomadic silhouettes that unfortunately look cumbersome and overworked. The striped, knitted dresses, ponchos (they nodded to Hearst’s Uruguayan heritage), floating dresses (the flou is a must for every Chloé designer) and shearling coats were in general mild-looking. The designer closed the collection with puffer outerwear repurposed from Chloé overstock spanning designers and eras (I mostly noticed Natacha Ramsay-Levi’s memorable prints – the way they were clashed kind of diminished her Chloé tenure). The pieces were created with Sheltersuit, a nonprofit organization providing aid to the homeless, which also collaborated on a series of backpacks. As mentioned above, Gabriela’s Chloé will take a no-jokes road to sustainability (she said that Chloé had already decreased this collection’s environmental footprint by 400% compared to last winter’s line), which is admirable. She mentioned certified materials, circular economy, net-zero goals as just some of her aims for the brand, and placed sustainability center stage for her debut – as her inspiration, her material, her technique, and even her silhouette. This really does have a potential, especially in Paris, where that topic still feels dormant. But for her future offerings, she should get some proper styling (or editing) done.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

One Foot in Bed, One Foot in Reality. Acne Studios AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

The new season Acne Studios collection is quite close to Jonny Johansson‘s recent outings: incredibly tactile, playfully deconstructed and intentionally ‘unfinished’ if you know what I mean. The difference is that it’s a direct response to current lockdown feelings and isolation moods. Spending lockdown at his Swedish country house, the designer has found it a sort of pastoral escape from reality: “a dreamscape, fantasy situation,” he said. “It’s been quite an easy place to focus, a comforting world to be in.” There’s a certain relaxed, cozy feeling in the opening, vintage-y looks. Distressed dressing gowns and fuzzy fabric pajamas, floral nightgowns and distended knits appropriated the cutesy fabrics that furnish his home, thick knitted socks stuffed into sandals… so Acne Studios and so, so desirable right now, during what seems to be a global fatigue. Stripped back, some of the underlayers (notably a tie-dye, silken dress, or a button-down micro-floral ’90s number) were charming as well. Johansson explained he was also designing with the future in mind. His somewhat severe snapback to reality, which appeared toward the end of the collection, revolved around the weddings and funerals precluded by gathering restrictions – hence the monochromatics that followed a palette of well-washed pastels. It felt somewhat dystopian, gaping crochet and wader boots read more directly as apocalyptic than churchgoing attire, but a twisted lace version of a wedding dress or some black taffeta tailoring would certainly suit cocktail hour. This season, designers are grappling with the notion of a post-pandemic wardrobe, and nothing has yet been decided – although it feels unlikely that many people will want to extend a year spent in pajamas much longer than is strictly necessary. Acne Studios offers that in-between wardrobe, one foot in bedsheets, one foot in actual life.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Healing Powers. Thebe Magugu AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

The first days of digital Paris Fashion Week are definitely lively – especially, thanks to new-gen designers who aren’t really Paris-based. In the last several years, South African designer Thebe Magugu observed friends and relatives overhauling their lives while studying traditional healing. Compelled by their connection to their ancestors, these young creatives began to learn practices with roots in antiquity, an experience that altered their perspectives. “It’s called ukuthwasa, and the way it manifests itself is quite interesting because it starts as a sickness, a kind of spiritual illness,” explained Magugu on Zoom to Vogue. “It causes people to take this monumental journey where you leave for months on end to train under a traditional healer. In the past it was something that felt far away from me, but now, as peers have received those sorts of callings, it’s fascinating. Once they return, they are completely changed.” This movement within African spirituality served as Magugu’s starting point for his powerful autumn-winter 2021 collection. The tension between old and new is a familiar fashion theme. Still, it has rarely been approached through the millennial South African experience, and never with healers as creative collaborators. Stylist Noentla Khumalo’s background in the subject adds a layer of authenticity and the collection’s key print. It’s through the articles used within her divination – goat knuckles, bones, seashells, and dice among them – that the pattern comes together, each element photographed by Magugu against a bed of straw. Abstracted from their original purpose and transferred onto pants and blouses, the items make for a kinetic design that draws the eye closer. The tale behind the floating dice and textured stalks isn’t instantly evident, but Magugu strives to create pieces with the kind of visual impact that requires no explanation. “With my collections, I always hope you can appreciate the fabrications or the construction even if you don’t know the whole backstory,” he says. “The story is an added plus.” Despite his claims to the contrary, Magugu is a detail-oriented storyteller whose pieces could come with footnotes and citations.

A certain surreal sentiment is perceivable clothes. An ombré cape dress laden with fringe was originally intended to be a costume, but Magugu decided to include it in the mix at the last minute. “It was conceived as the film’s opening look, and originally I wasn’t going to offer it as a commercial proposition,” he says. “It has a tactile feel to it, and it’s really a garment that showcases all this handiwork.” The importance of touch became a recurring theme, with tufted fabric from famed Japanese textile maker Mr. Adachi San and textured eco-prints by Larissa Don that utilized botanical transfers of imphepho, a flowering licorice plant used in traditional medicine. The materials also served to reference scarification, the raised surfaces on blazers imprinted with a proverb in braille that read, “What you do for your ancestors, your children will do unto you.” With cozy, straightforward pieces currently in demand, Magugu’s refusal to go humdrum was admirable. Sure, the buyer-friendly essentials are present – a blue and white shirtdress feels ready for a post-lockdown street style moment – but the excitement lies with esoteric pieces.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.