Paris

Elusive Chic. Chanel Pre-Fall 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

With a snip of her ribbon-looped scissors, Gabrielle Chanel released women from their corsets and put them in fluid jersey suits and loose chemise dresses. “Nothing is more beautiful than freedom of the body,” she said. With sweeping synergy, this season’s Chanel Métiers d’Art collection by Virginie Viard was equally liberating, with a pinch of denim and CC logo added. Viard invited guests to Le19M, the newly opened building devoted to the workshops of the maison’s artisans, where she presented her most crafts-centric collection within the very same architecture that had informed its cuts and motifs. Named after the arrondissement it inhabits, the triangular Le19M was designed by Rudy Ricciotti whose “concrete thread” façade evokes the intricacy of embroidered haute couture cloth. Viard echoed those lines – as well as elements from the building’s interior – in a collection she called “metropolitan.” The pre-fall 2022 line up is a combination of Chanel’s craftsmanship masters’ work – Lesage, Montex, Lemarié, Lognon, Goosens, Maison Michel, and Massaro – whose painstaking, super time-consuming, beautiful pieces of artisan work are put into the world to contribute to a bigger picture: the full look. Placing these age-old practices in a contemporary context, Viard took that look to the streets – at least those left of the River Seine. Interpreting the Chanel branding through graffiti-like embroidery, she exercised her take on the logomania. A top nestled the double-C among floral appliqué, the same logo was playfully speckled on cardigans and trousers in fluffy silver embroideries, and the Chanel name appeared tagged in multi-colored crystals across the front pockets of a tweed blouson that evoked a sweatshirt. A major Chanel tip: top the tweed outfit with an eternally charming hair bow. It took Viard a while to find her voice at Chanel and make her offerings something more than just riskless sets of the brand’s signatures. Now, the Chanel woman personifies unforced elegance and easy chic fit for contemporary times. And she sure loves gorgeous details!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Masked & Suited. Vetements AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Vetements has been struggling with keeping its momentum for a few seasons now, and some even say it officially started to “flop”. But the autumn-winter 2022 look-book has some pretty good clothes that make you think of the brand as a place for great tailoring rather than sweatshirts and viral moments. Indeed, the collection focuses on a more luxurious look – even though it kind of contradicts Vetements’ original memo. During a preview with Vogue, Guram Gvasalia was talking about Bitcoin and social media millionaires. “The early 20th century couturiers focused on industry tycoons who made money with oil, real estate, chocolate bars,” he said. “This collection is pushing to redefine the couture and the savoir faire for the new era” – for the new luxury shopper. If you see something cynical in the money prints and lotto card motifs you aren’t in on the joke. “The Gvasalias” is printed in what looks like The Simpsons font on the inside of a t-shirt; that’s a nod to Guram’s brother Demna’s spring 2022 Balenciaga show. Then there’s the fact that all but one of the 72 looks features a mask – a mask not unlike the one worn by Demna at that show and also at the Met Gala, where his famous date was similarly accoutred. “The truth is in today’s world dominated by social media – and a sometimes toxic environment – you don’t need to be Kim Kardashian to need some privacy in your life,” Guram explained. For the record, he added that masks have been part of the Vetements lexicon for years. Sibling dynamics aside, there were some notable developments here, mostly involving Vetements’s signature tailoring. The opening look’s button-down, trousers, jacket, and long coat are all made from the jersey typically used for t-shirts and hoodies, a post-lockdown innovation that addresses conflicting urges to dress up and stay comfortable. “You can throw them in your suitcase and start traveling again,” Gvasalia said. The team also experimented with “digital 3-D pattern modifications” that give straight-cut jackets a couture-ish hourglass shape. And they designed down jackets and jeans with built-in zippers so wearers can modify the silhouettes as they see fit. Other looks layer oversize tees on top of jackets and shirts, a counterintuitive idea that nonetheless looks distinctive. That brings it back around to the new gen, who have an uncanny way of making the counterintuitive suddenly look right.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Extraordinary Daywear. Valentino Resort 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

Lately, Pierpaolo Piccioli‘s direction at Valentino is towards creating clothes that celebrate life. Parisian cafés hold a particular charm for the designer these days. The Valentino show he staged last month had models walking out of the Carré du Temple to stroll in the surrounding streets, where people were sitting in cafés enjoying the en plein air experience. For resort 2022, which reads as a sort of prequel to the spring collection, the lookbook was shot in the Marais, a lively arrondissement populated by a hip and diverse crowd, in a café called Le Progrès. Its name resonates with Piccioli’s ongoing practice at the label, which he’s trying to steer forward without detracting from its history. “I want to bring life and a sense of reality into Valentino,” he said over Zoom from his studio in Rome. “Bringing it out of the atelier while retaining the savoir faire of the atelier.” Piccioli has been at the maison long enough to know its codes by heart; he has lived through its glamourous heyday, when Valentino Garavani received guests at his Château de Wideville, whose grounds were as perfectly manicured as the high-maintenance crowd that walked them. It was a world as fabulous as it was secluded and inaccessible. “I don’t want to forget the castle, but you have to be rooted in the present,” he said. “I want to bring the castle to the street, so to speak, and bring the street to the castle.” He calls this process re-signification; he feels that his duty as a fashion designer today is to be the vector of a vision of beauty in tune with the times we’re living in. “Beauty today means diversity and inclusivity; I want to encourage people to embrace it,” he said. Piccioli’s message is calibrated to appeal to younger generations, for which such values are a given; at Le Progrès, the cast included singer and TikTok-er Dixie D’Amelio; model and editor of the online platform the Youth Collective Project Amanda Prugnaud; filmmaker Christian Coppola; and actress Tina Kunakey. Every piece of the collection was treated individually to make it stand out on its own, not only adding to its value, but also allowing for the layered, personal styling which is becoming a sort of signature of Piccioli’s tenure. Shapes were simple and “almost elemental, without any grandeur,” and enhanced by elaborate decorations. A slender, slightly masculine white wool coat was appliquéd with floral ramages cut-out in black velvet, while a simple oversized black tee was intarsia-ed with lace as if a dressy blouse were somehow patchworked onto it. Eccentric flourishes were lavished on everyday pieces – feathers dotted sweats, capes, and svelte minidresses; long braided fringes trimmed ponchos; intricate broderie anglaise techniques appeared on slender, minimal tunics; and romantic blouses were encrusted with precious lace and worn with denim. “I wanted to make what is ordinary more imaginative and fantastical,” Piccioli said. “This is just extra-ordinary daywear.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Oh, So Hot! Mugler AW21

| Design & Culture by Ed

It’s getting sultry hot in here! Casey Cadwallader, the young American designer, has reignited the Mugler flame since his arrival at the label in 2018 by adapting the brand’s curvy, body-con aesthetic for the athleisure generation. Where Mugler’s corsets were rigid – his iconic 1992 motorcycle-chassis corset was made from plastic, metal, and Plexiglas – Cadwallader’s are built with two-way stretch. “You can tie your shoes, sit in a taxi, you can breathe,” he said in a preview of the autumn-winter 2021 collection. Material innovation and an embrace of extremes are essential to Mugler’s current success. There’s a pair of ass-less pants in the new lineup, but Cadwallader indicated that he might not have designed them if customers weren’t already wearing the part-sheer, part-opaque (read: mostly sheer) tights he’s been making for the last couple of seasons “without clothing.” The news at Mugler this time around is how he’s evolving his hyper-sexy vibe. In previous collections he’s leaned on black, but here he played with stretchy knit color-block layers to great effect, mixing emerald, ultramarine, bordeaux, and bright orange in one look and highlighter yellow, navy, and orange in another. His other experiment was born from a vintage Mugler bauble with a spray of flexible gold snake chains that he found at a flea market. “I loved how the chains moved,” he said. “I was looking for movement this season.” He sourced modern versions of the chains and made body jewelry from them. Bella Hadid models an intricate necklace top with a bodysuit in the brand’s new video, though Cadwallader’s fans are just as likely to wear it solo.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Sirens. Di Petsa SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Much of mainstream fashion wants what Dimitra Petsa has – just look at the many major designers cribbing her wet-look, Greek-goddess aesthetic (one of the recent Dior collections comes to mind). But if 2020’s lockdowns and fashion’s subsequent recalibration has taught us anything, it’s that emotion can’t be faked and a new generation of fashion lovers and customers are looking for a personal connection to their clothing. Di Petsa‘s ready-to-wear, presented at Paris Fashion Week for the first time as a guest of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, contains the same level of passion and fury as her one-off gowns. The proof isn’t only in the sensitive way she drapes her jersey to cradle the bosom, slide down the hips, or pool on the ground around the wearer’s ankles – she describes her process both as “the body emerging from something” and as a method of “accentuating the naked body, not covering it up” – but in the many women from Greece and the U.K. who went to Paris to help make Petsa’s vision real. She’s called her collection Nostos-Touch; the touch part is obvious, representing the idea of wanting to be embraced but being wary of its consequences. Nostos is Greek for “homecoming,” sort of like Odysseus after a long journey through the Mediterranean. Petsa is less concerned with the trials of that mythic man and more with the Sirens he finds along the way. She tapped into this darker side of femininity, the idea of mermaids caught in nets, of constraint and dangerous freedom, with a moody palette of cobalt, navy, burgundy, and gold. Even with its complicated drapery and cutouts, this collection is her most wearable offering yet, made from cotton jersey and Tencel and adorned with custom marine blue rings, bracelets, and necklaces. At Paris Fashion Week, the Petsa Poseidonesses came together in a performance centered around the musician Lola Lolita. Models writhed, swayed, and lay down while Lolita commanded the ceremony. Petsa says she wants to move away from Western perceptions of Greek culture. Even those with a long memory and long scholarship of ancient cultures may be hard-pressed to remember the pre-Greeks, but many of those who do have hypothesized that the earliest cultures on the Peloponnesus were matriarchal. One hopes Petsa’s customers are willing to join her on this journey through time and womanhood – but if not, these are still some of the most beautiful sexy dresses and separates this season.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.