Reviews

Phlegethon. Rick Owens SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Rick Owens‘ spring-summer 2021 is fire. And not just because we’ve finally saw his killer shoulder and platform boots in bubble-gum pink. The story behind it, the untamed fierceness of it, the sexuality – it’s really, really good. “Let’s get biblical” – the designer was FaceTiming from the Venice Lido, on the street that separates the Lido Casino from his favorite beach. He was watching the rehearsal for his spring 2021 women’s show, whose name, Phlegethon, he ripped from Greek mythology. Phlegethon was one of the five rivers of the Underworld, less famous than the Styx, but just as deadly. In Dante’s Inferno, it was a river of blood that boiled souls. Even at the remove of the Lido – a two-hour drive from his Italian factory that he describes as completely quiet and provincial – Owens has a preternatural gift for tapping into the collective unconscious and amplifying it in the most propulsive and cinematic of ways. He sees the hellscape that is the current world situation – COVID-19, irreversible global warming, the U.S. presidential race, you name it – and responds with defiant bravado. In his press notes, he used the words “grim gaiety.” On the phone he referred to the way French women’s hats became more extreme during World War II as a subtle way of taunting their German occupiers. “We can think of clothes as frivolous or we can think of clothes as one of our first steps towards communicating with other people, which is a powerful thing,” Owens said. “Clothes don’t change the world, but they’re part of an attitude that influences the way people think. They’re signifiers, little messages people send to each other, like those hats.” The models’ masks might’ve been the most obvious signifiers. Now that they’re a necessary accessory, every runway without them is a missed opportunity – and to one’s surprise, many designer don’t include them at all. “A mask kind of works with my clothes,” Owens said, “but it’s also a vote. It’s also promoting consideration of others. You might not believe in a mask, but it sends the right message.” As it happens, the collection’s sexy fishnet dresses were upcycled from the masks models wore in his fall 2012 show. The Casino piazza setting was even more monumental than Owens’s usual Paris venue, the Palais de Tokyo. Owens called this a “bare-bones” production, put on by a “skeleton crew,” but there were smoke machines and strobe lights placed inside the doors of the shuttered casino. Models strode through the fog in thigh-high platform boots that the designer dubbed “waders” – Venice is sinking, after all, and don’t forget that river of blood! “In the face of adversity,” he concluded, “we have to pull ourselves up.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Distorted Glamour. Y/Project SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Y/Project gets a bit repetitive – which, in a way, makes Glenn Martens‘ mastership of exaggerated distortion so distict and consistent. And offering a product that utterly reflects your brand is every brand’s priority today. “I had to adapt to a new system, and a new way of working,” Martens told Vogue. “I was thinking, What’s the core of the clothing I make? At the end of the day, it’s to make people happy. The biggest thing you can do now is to bring emotion, because people want what they wear to stand for something.” You could say that that has been a constant ethos of his. Martens has always found joy in making fashion, and that attitude shines through in his work. It’s what makes his clothes – complex designs, often layered in their construction and laden with historical references – fundamentally so intriguing. That inventiveness of his comes laced with a generosity of spirit and a healthy dash of much needed humor. Spring-summer 2021 is no exception. Martens has consolidated much of what he has achieved this past seven years at Y/Project. To anyone who’s a fan of his playful denim, or his clever, interactive knits, there are the likes of bedazzled marbled gray or pristine white jeans, both with those saucy deep-V trompe l’oeil waistbands he loves, or sweaters that would be classic were it not for their askew collars which can be altered at their wearer’s will; this time around one of those might be paired with a new trouser shape he has developed which mimics a silk sarong. The latter might not exactly be for the faint of fashion heart, but they’re a gutsy (and cheeky) response to the moment we’re in, part of what he describes as the collection’s “less serious, less drama” new mood. There are pant suits that can be transformed by being unbuttoned or unlayered. Polo dresses which, via the miracle of their drawstrings, can go from Zoom office to going out – or whatever will constitute that in the months to come; maybe you’ll just vamp it up at home. Meanwhile, a faux-leather trench delivers a serious hit of glam, something echoed by the collection’s flamboyant mules or lace booties. Still, it’s an off-kilter kind of glam, one that’s hardly obvious or expected. Sex & The City wardrobe in 2020, eventually facing the end of the world.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Transcendent. Acne Studios SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Acne Studios returned to the usual fashion month week schedule, which might be making more sense than showing two months earlier during menswear-couture-resort frenzy – ironically, this period of time is even more hectic than regular Paris Fashion Week, especially in post-lock-down era. The spring-summer 2021 collection coming from Jonny Johansson is one of the best ones in a while. Less over-styling, more focus on the actual clothes. And there was plenty of optimism and vibrance (and occasional magic), too, which we all need now. “It feels like a transition to something more positive. I’m very optimistic about what’s happening. I feel positive. I spent more time with myself and my family, and just in the studio with people. It’s been a less stressful period, although the stress has come from somewhere else. I’ve been quite happy, actually, although I know that sounds weird.” Maybe that explained why Johansson’s show notes referenced “gatherings for a spiritual moonrise”, and the garments quite literally reflected it. Everywhere you looked, there was a shiny, metallic, or iridescent texture. Within the context, it felt a bit like New Age spirituality, an element you could associate with the surfer culture Johansson belongs to. “When the sun is going down, hordes of people are staying on the beach looking at the sundown. It’s like a tribe of people that go towards the light,” he said. The shine mingled with raw materials like crinkled paper, washed linens, and hemp on heels. Styled together, it had a certain density about it. A raggy dress in stained leather and tattered netting drove home the cultish association. A collaboration with the Los Angeles–based artist Ben Quinn, who interprets his personal experiences with the mystical via supernatural imagery, produced various pieces that made the whole affair feel that extra-bit pagan. Invited to experience a repeat of the show after its livestream, guests walked through a series of rooms in the Grand Palais, each reflecting a different time of day and the light that defines it. The looks were selected to match those different occasions. Models were lined up and walking around in circles, eerily staring up at a massive sunlamp as if they were participating in a séance. Who said fashion can’t be therapeutical and slightly transcendent?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Smart Femininity. Chloé SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

This was a classic Natacha Ramsay-Levi collection for Chloé, meaning smart femininity that works everytime. Which doesn’t mean that there was no novelty about her spring-summer 2021 collection. There is a number of cliché topis and questions that pop up every moment during the post-lock-down fashion month: what will we want to wear after a year spent in confinement, should face masks be a fashion item, are socially distanced spaces a necessity? For Ramsay-Levi, those questions triggered some far bigger ones: How does our wardrobe affect the way we move and behave in the public space? How does it impact our body language? She staged her Chloé show within the monumental courtyard of the Palais de Tokyo. On three massive screens, live footage captured her models making their way to the runway – which was really, really good. Wearing the collection, the Chloé women were scattered around the streets of the area engaging in normal situations. Some were strolling down the bank of the  Seine, others were seen crossing a street or chatting on the steps of a building. Eventually, they stepped into the imposing courtyard with a different purpose to their step, visibly adapting to new surroundings. “The idea was to pick them up within their own intimacy of real life,” Ramsay-Levi said, referring to the cameras’ zoom lenses. “It’s about showing something that’s more attentive, more spontaneous, and more intimate, and taking time to look at a woman and the way she moves and acts in a much more natural way. Rather than just say, ‘Okay, you should walk like this.’” Her point was to study, evaluate and define the values of the everyday wardrobe Chloé provides for its customer. Since Ramsay-Levi joined the house in 2017, she has gradually been doing just that, editing and refining her expression to determine an idea of the essential. The answer to her questions this season clarified that approach to a further extent. “Things take time. We need to repeat things before we understand them. When I look at fashion, sometimes I only start to understand the point of view of a designer in the second or third season. I think it’s important to be committed to what you do,” she said. Her philosophy was reflected in a collection that largely built on elements introduced in previous seasons, and reduced them – in cut and decoration – to a sense of the universally desirable, and the more affordable, too. She loosened her Chloé silhouette, touching on the post-quarantine theme of comfort dressing, and toned down her embellishment in favor of a focus on colors. “A question that was very strong in confinement was: How long does a product last?” Ramsay-Levi said. “And it’s not enough. Basically, until we can change that rhythm, it’s important for me to be able to say ‘for a while,’ and not change my mind all the time. As far as being business-driven, it’s about being truthful and consistent. Some products only last three months maximum in a boutique. If you keep arriving with something new that makes that outdated, I think that’s not valuable as a position.” Food for thought for many, many in the industry.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Oh La La! Patou SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

The fashion industry should finally give some love for Guillaume Henry‘s brilliance at Patou. I even think that the buyers should give the brand a chance. Why? Really, nobody else does French chic this good right now. For his presentation, the designer welcomed people to an absolutely delightful Patou runway show that didn’t really happen yesterday. “It’s a show with empty seats and no models!” he laughed. “We’ve turned our studio into a catwalk.” The models you see sauntering across the parquet in their puffballs, voluminous smocks, Provençal collars, and jaunty sailor hats had played their parts, sans audience, a couple of days ago at the label’s Île de la Cité HQ. For spring-summer 2021, Henry offers meringue-sque Provençal-printed puffed sleeves, a pie-frill collar, and a mini-balloon skirt, which all came from his 1980s childhood imagination. But wait, it’s not as easy as it sounds. All made from organic cotton poplin – 100% GOTS cotton, it said. “Yes, we’re 70% recycled and organic materials in this collection,” Henry exclaimed, “and we’re aiming for 100%.” This is the most modern thing about the rebirth of Patou: it comes with full-on French style, transparent sourcing, and non-ridiculous prices. “Patou is about a wardrobe, and it will always be,” said Henry. “But this time we turned this wardrobe into something more fantasy! I wanted to go back to this love of fashion I had when I was nine years old, drawing dresses in my bedroom—and nobody was talking about fear or the economy. It was just about fun, flamboyance, joy, enthusiasm. I wanted to go back to that exuberance.” And so it reads. Exaggerated silhouettes have been steadily inflating over the past few seasons. Ideal timing, then, for the comeback of Henry’s memories of being enthralled by watching the likes of Christian Lacroix on French TV news. “He was a huge influence on me when I was nine, 10, in the late ’80s, early ’90s. So I wanted the silhouette to be ‘couture’ even if you can break it all down separately.” Lacroix, as all fashion history geeks know, started his rise to fame at the house of Patou, so his puffball silhouettes, succulent bows, and French-regional references resonate happily through Henry’s collection. The difference, in the hands of the younger designer, is the practicality and sense of economy that underpins his design. The huge white collars are accessories – they’re meant to be laundered and used as styling pieces. The silhouettes that appear to be frivolous one-party outing dresses (like the captivating Provençal look) are often actually skirts and tops, intended for multiple reconfigurations. “A blouse, a skirt, and a dress,” as he put it. Smart, chic, fun, sustainable. Et voila!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.