Beautiful Melancholia. Dries Van Noten AW23

March 1, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

There are those Dries Van Noten collections, where the designer isn’t really into his usual vibrant flower-garden moments, and goes for something definitely more somber, melancholic. The autumn-winter 2023 collection shown in Paris today is one of those moody Dries seasons, and I love it with my whole heart. The latest offering has a dark and Antwerpian quality about it, with its velvets and antique-looking embroidered silks patchworked into turtleneck tops and jackets in a deconstructed, Martin Margiela manner. In general, the collection’s beautiful garments have that feel of being well worn, as if time has been behind the sun-bleached look of the tapestry florals or the weather-stained fringed hems of the dresses. With this line-up, Van Noten also reminds us that he’s a master colorist: the delightful palette of ochre, burgundy, maroon and lilac are here to inspire our wardrobe next autumn. There was also gold: sometimes super-polished, sometime crinkled on the waists of the coats. It was very kintsugi – the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. In a world that needs lot of repairing to be done, why not wear this gorgeous Dries Van Noten collection?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Chic, No? Saint Laurent AW23

March 1, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Anthony Vaccarello‘s work at Saint Laurent has reached new levels of creative success since the designer started to read the YSL glossary and began translating its nuances and quintessences into contemporary interpretation of painfully hot, Parisian chic. The autumn-winter 2023 collection, presented on an elevated, chandelier-lit runway that looked exactly like the one on which Yves presented his shows in the 1980s, focused on a look as simple (and eternally good-looking) as a masculine, big-shouldered jacket worn with a pencil skirt. This power-look came down the runway in various fabric and silhouette iterations, nearly always kept in black or white with pops of tartan plaid or earthy brown. Some of these sharp blazers evolved into flowing, floor-sweeping capes of silk or velvet (for the evening), or were nonchalantly wrapped with plaid scarves (for a rainy, Parisian day). There’s really not much more to say about the collection except for the fact it’s another impressive exercise of refinement coming from Vaccarello, and a very seductive, smart, and commercially-vital homage to the YSL legacy. In the voice of a Catherine Deneuve-esque Parisienne, “chic, no?“

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Runaway Bride. Vaquera AW23

February 28, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Backstage at their Vaquera fashion show on the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee were talking about dreams and nightmares, and how they can become interchangeable as time goes by. “We’re excited about selling commercial things,” DiCaprio said. “But I think this season we weren’t afraid to make things that weren’t necessarily for sales, and to say that that is an integral part of our brand.” Take the fun silvery sequin dresses or the various iterations of the wedding dress. I mean, wearing Vaquera on that special day is quite a statement. Other non-commercial garments were the jeans studded with blunt-ended nails which reportedly weigh a couple of kilograms. Mixed in amongst those punkish pants were more readily wearable pieces in the form of army sweaters and nylon cargos, and a faded black leather peacoat and pants. In the early New York days of Vaquera, back when the brand had a more conceptual direction, they designed polo dresses with pointillist renderings of their designer heroes, Vivienne Westwood among them. She was present in their latest show via an updated version of her infamous “tit top” with twisted and tucked “nipple” details. She’s the proof that you can mix business and non-conformity.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – On The Phone. Courrèges AW23

February 8, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Courrèges is gradually becoming a brand with a contemporary feel that offers some truly desirable clothes. All that thanks to Nicolas Di Felice, who with every season redefines what this French label is to a modern-day audience. The most important aspect the designer orbits around is the functionality of clothes seen through the lens of social observation. In the men’s autumn-winter 2023 (and women’s pre-fall) line-up, his thought process was triggered by watching the phenomenon of people hunching over their phones. “I’m really working on kind of a new silhouette that is really, like, bending,” he said. “It really seems like nothing, but actually it’s something, this reflection of us on our phones.” Somehow, that idea bloomed into a sexy and cool wardrobe. Technically, Felice’s inspiration of the staring-at-screens impact on human posture brought about a slight forward-tilt of the shoulder line – and the ingenious idea of inserting an invisible zipper extending to the elbow on the inside of tailored sleeves, “so you don’t have to ruin you clothes!” The lines of Courrèges are sharp, mostly dark, and cleverly sliced by Di Felice to adapt the original space-age minimalism of the founder for the new generation. That’s another of his talents: witness what he’s named “mini-skirt pants.” It looks like a plain black long-sleeved tunic, but there’s a narrow gap, high up on the thigh; a flash of flesh where the hem meets the pants. An incendiary item he proposes for all genders. Très cool.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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To Nature. Uma Wang SS23

February 7, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Sometimes, you’ve got a fashion collection that is pure poetry. Uma Wang‘s spring-summer 2023 is one of these rare examples. Her line-up is an ode to nature – but not in a cliché way. The neutral palette conjured the serene eternity of desert sands; coffee dye gave an earthiness to some of the materials. The second look was created from one length of a metal and cotton fabric that resembles tree bark. Sheer nylon was used, said Wang, to evoke “a white cloud in the sky.” Just as Wang harnessed different natural elements – sky and earth, for example – so she combined menswear touches with soft draping, flou, and structure. This collection read as mature as opposed to trendy because of the clarity of Wang’s vision, which is largely derived from her passion for materials. The designer works closely with Italian mills creating incredible, often textural fabrics, which help to inform the silhouettes. In general, Wang’s stories are like collages of different stories that somehow make sense when connected. For spring, Wang borrowed from the world of interiors a frayed cotton meant to evoke a woman wearing something she found at an antiques market. There was an ’80s boldness to menswear-inspired coats, jackets, and sleeves, for example. The square-toe shoes were inspired by those worn during the Ming Dynasty. The styling of the necklaces and hats tripped up a narrative that otherwise felt like a true fusion of elements relating to culture, history, and gender forged into something new. In her show notes, Wang wrote of nature existing beyond boundary and taboo; she associates wilderness with freedom. The humility one feels in the face of the natural world finds a parallel in the designer’s respect for textiles and craft, but otherwise this collection, which showcased Wang’s formidable talents, celebrated the power of a woman, giving her the option to stand strong, proud, free with the sturdiness of a tree or the gentleness of a cloud.