Tender & Strong. Rabanne SS24

September 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

At Rabanne (no longer Paco), Julien Dossena had a mesmerizing collection featuring nomadic warrior women in chainmail armours (occasionally weaved with peacock feathers) and gilded textures. “I’ve never been that interested in the bourgeoisie,” the designer quipped backstage. “I can play on the codes but it’s about exploration for me.” Going by the pictures Jean Clemmer shot for Paco Rabanne in the 1970s, Dossena imagined a kind of warrior beach woman whose wardrobe was founded in ancient constructions. “It’s a woman by the sea, black and white, in the sun with a little loincloth and a jewel. It’s an exalting sensuality. It was a strength I wanted to work on,” he explained. As a meta inspiration element, he printed the pictures on tank tops. The look materialised in hooded mini chainmail dresses, sarouel trousers – “the original first clothes we ever wore: a square with two tubes” – and rustic, organic textures Dossena attributed to the work of the artist Sheila Hicks. “Like a carpet you’ve made a dress [out] of,” as he put it. “I wanted everything to be handcrafted: the feeling that someone touches it; sensual; destroying the fabric; threads.” It made for an ancient sensibility that felt kind of sci-fi. Dossena’s time-travelling looks gave off everything from Athena to Amazon to gladiator to Joan of Arc. “Tender and strong,” he said. “It’s a kind of community: a tribe, a gang of women who express their own sensibility and sensuality.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Power-Sensuality. Chloé SS24

September 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

For her finale collection for Chloé, Gabriela Hearst at last showed her sexier side of the Parisian maison. Maybe if she indulged a bit more in these smooth leathers and shorter lengths, she would thrive at the brand? The spring-sumer 2024 collection didn’t reinvent Parisian chic, but it had some much-needed sensuality that lacked throughout Hearst’s tenure. But it seemed the New York-based designer wasn’t in a sorrowful mood, as the show’s ambience was lively and bright, set outside against the Seine on a warm, sunny Parisian afternoon. Hearst leaves behind a legacy of championing socially responsible designs, and her last collection continues that theme. Per the press release, consciousness is the fourth and final ingredient to achieving climate success, which continues the ideas on clean energy, regeneration and female leadership that the designer set forth in her prior collections. For Hearst, this is best symbolized by the flower and that motif was evident from the opening look, a ruffled one shoulder dress that looked like layers of petals. Other dresses reinforced the idea, with gauzy rosette swirls adorning the hips or jutting shoulders that featured undersides stuffed with blooms. For her final look, Hearst opted for a black and white leather dress, a rather serious note given that the runway shortly segued into an all out dance party, featuring a samba band. As the models danced, it seemed that while this chapter at Chloé may have ended, Hearst was leaving it with plenty of joy.

Extremes. Schiaparelli SS24

September 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

When you design to provoke, you must also take yourself less seriously: that’s Daniel Roseberry’s ethos for spring-summer 2024. His latest Schiaparelli collection is all about extremes. Extreme chic and extreme humor. The starting point for the Texas-born designer was one of Elsa Schiaparelli’s first successes: a sweater knit with a trompe l’œil collar and bow. Thus his desire to “make the everyday come to more vivid, more surprising life” gave birth to white shirts, suits and smoking jackets – classic silhouettes reimagined with Schiaparelli spice. A simple-seeming ribbed dress bore illusion breasts, and shimmered in a metallic pewter knit. Another ensemble was a play on an emerging formula: a boxy blazer, low-rise trousers, and the flash of a boxer over the waistband. Roseberry served his interpretation in elevated fabrics, embellished with gold bijoux: a sandy short jacket over white boxers and cowboy-style denim. But the most delightful looks were those that unleashed Schiaparelli’s menagerie from the archives, where the most amusing of animal neighbors reside. The lobster, protagonist of Schiaparelli’s famous 1937 dinner dress, clung in ceramic from chain necklaces; so too did crabs and fish skeletons dangle over leather bodysuits and jersey sheaths. A halterneck dress, Roseberry’s signature look, featured the spoils of another creature: the contents of a woman’s bag, spilled over ecru cotton.

Therapy. The Row Pre-Fall 2024

September 29, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

We’re midway of Paris Fashion Week and I’m fashion weak by now. The Row, since moving to Paris, serves as a relaxing intermission. With Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen‘s brand, there’s no hurry, no gimmicks, no bullshit. For pre-fall 2024, the designers delivered simple draping and oversize volumes, luxe layered T-shirt and tank dresses, beach towels thrown casually around the neck (the orange one is so me) and the satin hotel slippers. It’s a fashion detox, done in the unfussy manner of Martin Margiela’s days at Hermès. The tailoring was louche and loungey, with drapey black trousers and a sleeveless funnel neck top worn with a gold bracelet on the upper arm. A cream paisley evening jacket (worn by Małgosia Bela) for the day, pajama pants and a red cashmere robe for the evening. While many designers have tried this season to do pinafores, The Row succeeded in making one a stylish woman would want to wear in black over an oversize white T-shirt. Mostly working in neutrals, they did sprinkle in flashes of cobalt, orange and red, like garnishes on a seaside cocktail. And little extras, like gold toe rings on freshly pedicured feet, and high-crown sun hats added the right notes of whimsy.

Miseducation. Courrèges SS24

September 29, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

As the Courrèges models stepped out onto the spring-summer 2024 set, it cracked. Made of plaster and designed to look like moon rock, artist Remy Brière was responsible for the earth-shattering effect. Brière drew inspiration from the stripped-back strategies of Land Art, echoing the clash of Mind and Nature as models strut past, creating audible, visual fractures beneath their feet. If only Nicolas Di Felice‘s collection was as intriguing as the setting – even though the story behind promised a lot. So, the designer was inspired by the imaginary narrative of a woman graduating from university and going on a road trip. Along the way, she loosens up, becoming more open, less burdened as she ventures into the vast desert. There she discovers a “cult run by mothers” and begins her miseducation. However, I wasn’t convinced any of that was truly captured by the rather unremarkable clothes. Models wore elevated campus-like slouchy polo dresses in cotton piqué, oversized Harrington vests and biker jackets, spliced and zipped asymmetrically. Masculinity flirted with the feminine while funnelled necklines were altered to enhance body posture, and, like Amazonian warriors, the girls loomed large. A modern take on the 1960s space-age aesthetic, sculptural gowns and hybrid cotton canvas pieces could morph from military skirts into sleek hooded mini dresses. On leather armour and silver or glass breastplates, New Age symbols paid homage to the elements of the Earth. What truly speaks to me in this new Courrèges collection is the leather jacket offering. There are really good.