Contemporary. Loewe SS25

October 4, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

In his 10th anniversary show for Loewe, Jonathan Anderson wasn’t looking back at his all-time hits. It’s Jonathan: he’s a designer that is always looking forward. The delightfully surreal, but not overly on-the-nose collection began with a bouncingly light, flowered, off-the-shoulder crinoline dress. Corseting-free and hands in pockets, the look – which reappearead a couple of times in the show – felt absolutely contemporary and cool (unlike the stuffy prettiness at Alessandro Michele’s Valentino debut). Anderson finds sheer pleasure in messing with classicism. References to classical composers and painters on T-shirts – made in feathers – pictured Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and a Manet soldier boy. “I like this idea that they’re kind of like pinup rock stars,” Anderson said. “Like when you go to a museum or you go to a concert: experiential things that you want to take a memento of with you. The idea that music reminds us of moments in our lives.” Then there were his multiple reimagined French golden age couture dresses, all hoops and semisheer flower prints and trapeze-line silhouettes abbreviated to very short minis. Worn with sneakers, there was nothing fussy about his take on eveningwear. Again, a contemporary feel that many, many designers had a hard time grasping this season.

And to celebrate Jonathan Anderson’s victorious decade at Loewe…

ED’s SELECTION:

Loewe Orange Blossom Scented Candle

Loewe Toy Paneled Denim Ankle Boots

Loewe Argyle Wool Sweater

Loewe Leather-trimmed Padded Shell Bomber Jacket

Loewe Puzzle Fold Convertible Medium Leather Tote

Loewe Leopard-print Calf Hair Pumps

Loewe Asymmetric Floral-print Silk Dress

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Girls (And Willem). Miu Miu SS25

October 3, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Miu Miu‘s spring-summer 2025 collection was a post-post-modern collage of various notions of femininity, seen through the lens of Miuccia Prada‘s absolutely distinct Miu-isms. This girl was certainly interrupted – the Miuccia way, with styling help of Lotta Volkova. To start, there were underthings worn as outer things, such as white cotton slips; some had graphic sequined embroideries. Sporty track separates and cutout bathing suits were also in the mix, along with private-school uniforms 1970s-ish geometric prints lifted from a spring 2005 collection (that’s the thing about Prada: 20 years later, her concepts feel like new). It was a wild juxtaposition of things that don’t belong together yet somehow work together. Western belts and waitress dresses, well-worn shirting and sporty bikini tops… but in the end, there was method to this chaos. And then you had Willem Dafoe closing the show.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Hope? Comme Des Garçons SS25

October 3, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

“With the state of the world as it is, the future as uncertain as it is, if you put air and transparency into the mix of things, there could be the possibility of hope” is Rei Kawakubo‘s thought behind her spring-summer 2025 collection, paraphrased by her husband Adrian Joffe. Comme Des Garçons shows during Paris Fashion Week are moments of transcendence, like a slit to another reality. This season, the voluptuous, ecstatic, erratic, bubbling, unsettling and vibrant forms, some as if splattered with blood, hit different. Just a couple of days before the show, I watched Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” starring Demi Moore, and in a way this film dialogues with Kawakubo’s subversive take on contemporary women: their emotions, struggles, bodies (just think about her “Lumps & Bumps” collection). Then, seeing these runway garments IRL during a re-see at Comme Des Garçons’ showroom, in attendance of Rei herself and Michele Lamy, felt like a very bold, fever dream (in fact I was sick that day – the Parisian cold!). An experience to remember and cherish forever.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Beauty Grandeur. Rick Owens SS25

October 3, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

With every season, Rick Owens is reaching new levels of supreme, untamed and convention-breaking beauty. The gothy elegance and high camp of his sensationally blooming aesthetic was built on his fascination with Old Hollywood. Think long narrow skirts with fishtail hems – silhouettes lifted from movies of the 30s – and dramatic volumes. The grandeur of the Palais De Tokyo setting, the evocative hair and makeup, the otherworldliness of his models (the most inclusive casting of the entire season, featuring women of very different body sizes and shapes), the extremity of his elongated, extraterrestrial clothes… just incredible. “I’ve always thought of my life’s mission as kind of balancing out oppressive discrimination and intolerance in the world by proposing a very cheerful perversity – that’s always been my thing,” Owens summed up. We are so lucky to have him.

Speaking of Rick, I met his wife Michele Lamy in Paris. What a woman! What an aura! Beyond. Here she posed for me:

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Impact. The Row Pre-Fall 2025

October 2, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen keep on taking over Paris by storm – a quiet one, but highly impactful. The minimalism they study and channel is reaching unbelievable level of perfection, and nearly every second collection we’ve seen this season is somehow inspired by The Row. Plus, the twins opened their first boutique in town, on the ultra-chic rue de Mont-Thabor, filled with design pearls: dressing-room door by Jean Prouvé that sells on auctions for $101,600, Victor Courtray’s chairs reaching up to $14,000, and Vadim Androusov’s wheat-shaped sconces. The store itself feels like a understated sanctuary, which during Paris Fashion Week was besieged by literally everyone. You could easily spend 30 minutes in the line.

The store opening happened in the same week the Olsens presented their pre-fall 2025 collection. The fashion show had a no-photos policy that some people just couldn’t respect as most industry insiders had a leaked video in their DMs. Lookbook came out a couple of days later, and here’s the thing: the designers are smart about not falling into the hype-trap. They aren’t dramatically voluming up on their creativity just to deliver the clicks; rather, they keep on refining their already-perfect skills in dress-making and tailoring, and also very luxe apparel. Yet there was also a rawer, perhaps more conceptual and lightly experimental edge at work here too; an embrace of where beautiful imperfection could possibly take them. Earthy organza tank, constructed from layers of fabric, over white pants; a gray cocktail dress which looked as though a swathe of raw-edged fabric had been pulled around the body, with a black bodice underneath keeping it in place; and a gorgeous black sheath with a panel which fell in a trail from one shoulder. Sublime.