Paris

Poetry. Haider Ackermann AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Timothée Chalamet attended Haider Ackermann‘s autumn-winter 2020, but that of course wasn’t the sole highlight of the entire event. Although there was no real explanation regarding the line-up (“I don’t like to define,” said the designer), the keys to unlocking the thought behind the collection appeared to reside in the track list upon the cotton quilt coat in one of the men’s looks. Under Ackermann’s signature and the headline “Private Dancer” was a list of songs, including Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man,” David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners,” Yoko Ono’s “I Want My Love to Rest Tonight,” Underworld’s “Born Slippy,” Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” and Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. “These are all my favorite songs,” Haider told the press. “It was just an ode to everything I love.” The collection was also a mix that unfolded in groups of looks for both women (sometimes under space-age beehive hats that elevated the silhouettes even more) and men. From wearing shades of ecru to rich velvets to black, the models walked in packs. What united them was the Ackermann eye for the romantic, the poetic and the sensual. At the back of jackets, vents bled into extra folds of material that caressed the silhouette. Long and lean overcoats were contoured with collars and buttons in a series of masterfully produced arrangements. This show was a painstakingly tailored mixtape of all of Ackermann’s wearable passions and signatures. Simply speaking: beautiful.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Dress To Impress. Loewe AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

“Dressing to impress—I think that’s an exciting thing,” Jonathan Anderson declared backstage of his latest Loewe show. “Looking at building new types of silhouettes that can work in an abstract way. Trying to take a risk, maybe in my own self.” Taking risks is a trouble for many designers in Paris, so it’s great to see at least someone addressing that. What he began with – the volumized “entrance-making” shapes he showed in his JW Anderson collection in London – was followed through with inspirational conviction at Loewe. The collection at some points looked odd, but in a good, refreshing way. This line-up wasn’t obvious. What were these brocade dresses, gathered by Takuro Kuwata’s ceramic works? How to capture the shoulder-extending device from which caped-back sleeves were suspended? Anderson said he didn’t quite know exactly how he’d arrived at those ideas. “But sometimes it’s nice to feel vulnerable when you’re doing a collection – that you don’t know what the outcome is going to be before you start.” In pushing across the frontiers of the norm, Anderson relies partly on spontaneous curation. “Exaggerating by illusion” is one way he described the process. Yet the thing about Anderson is that his creative push is also part of his incredibly prescient long-term strategy to turn Loewe into what he’s called “a cultural brand” (he’s reconstructed it into a fashion home for the art-owning and gallery-going international clientele). This as well gets reflected in Jonathan’s fashion. Echoes of 17th century Spanish art – especially Zurburan and Velasquez – come in the subtle Spanish semiotics Anderson embeded in the collection. Maybe there was a hint of flamenco in the raw-edge tiers in a gray flannel coat and the triple-fluted sparkle-dusted sleeves of a ribbed-knit dress. But then, some of the dresses had volumes that made you think of medieval-wear we know from miniature illustrations.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Comfort Zone. Isabel Marant AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-winter 2020, Isabel Marant stayed in her comfort zone. Her signature, hourglass silhouette came in knitted dresses with over-sized shoulders and quilted varsity jackets with a sharp cut. Her trademark styling trick – in which a belt is used to cinch a voluminous jacket – was in full effect on shaggy camel-colored shearling and all-enveloping blanket coats. Mostly kept in layered neutrals, the collection pleases with its balance between minimalism and nomadic chic – something we all know Marant for. It’s one of those collections that comes nearly unnoticed, but when it hits the stores, everyone wants it.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Rework The Past. Paco Rabanne AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Paco Rabanne is the industry’s – and specifically, the buyers’ – current obsession in Paris. And one thing is for sure: Julien Dossena‘s collections aren’t intentionally commercial. But somehow, his ultra-light chain-mail dresses and accessories sell like hot buns. For some time now, Dossena has been exploring ways to extend the 1960s space-age limits that the house of Paco Rabanne is associated with. His own tastes have traveled, to much critical acclaim, toward a look that modernizes a glamour appropriated from the 1970s. But for autumn-winter 2020, there was something deeper and more subversive going on: a placing of the symbolism of spiritual-religious garb – allusions to clerical robes, monklike habits, and Joan of Arc armor – firmly within the female domain. “I don’t want to say that they’re a cult, exactly,” he said. “I’m not a believer at all, but I’m interested in how thinking about something that’s beyond still drives everyone, even in the age of technology.” The show was presented in an underground chamber of the Conciergerie (the place where Marie Antoinette once languished as a prisoner of the French Revolution, before she was hauled off to be guillotined), a perfect location for the mystical, magical procession of mysterious female priests. Hoods and ruffs, capes and slender maxi-coats, voluminous brocade dresses and fragile lace and flower embroideries – it all made so much sense. Dossena has the rare talent of reworking the symbolism and craft of the past in order to take them into the future.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Elevating Silhouettes. Rick Owens AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Nobody does a big shoulder like Rick Owens. Not speaking of silhouettes that completely elevate the wearer, making them look like goddesses and gods. In a season in which fashion has often come up short against growing coronavirus anxiety, Owens made it look easy. “It’s a collection about play,” he said backstage. “I see myself balancing out a world that can be kind of very strict in its aesthetics. There have to be people like me that have other suggestions.”Among those he had for autumn-winter 2020 were the above mentioned shoulders so peaked on a leather moto jacket, and so “monstrous” on puffer coats and pilled knits, that they grazed the earlobes, and recycled plastic platform boots that inched up near the hips. The one-leg Kansai Yamamoto by way of David Bowie jumpsuits that made such a major impact at Owens’s men’s show a month ago were transformed here into clingy dresses whose asymmetrical hems curved around the models’ legs as they slinked. Owens also has floor-sweeping sleeping bag capes in black, sky blue and silver for all the cosmic empresses out there. Out of this world!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.