Reviews

Colour On. Nina Donis AW20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Donis Pouppis and Nina Neretina’s Nina Donis label is legendary within the Russian fashion industry. The duo met in the late 1980s while in university for textiles and started their own line, which they officially launched in 2000. The two went on to show at London Fashion Week for several seasons, but Moscow felt more like home. Now, the pair splits their time between Pouppis’s childhood home of Cyprus and the Russian capital, where the brand has amassed a dedicated following. As inspiration, they often look to Russian motifs, like Olympic uniforms and Russian traditional dress. For autumn-winter 2020, one might note a colour palette as bold as the one of Kazimir Malevich (or Pantone matching system). The duo were as well inspired by Jamie Julien Brown’s totem installations (the striped pieces!) as well as historic collars seen in El Greco’s portraits, deconstructed into verstaile accessories you can wear over a sweatshirt-dress or minimal knit. The collection’s must-have? Definitely here for the voluminous, yellow blouson with exaggerated bows down the sleeves. If you want to see more of Nina Donis, click here!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Adaptability. Peter Do SS21

| Design & Culture by Ed

Gradually, first collections made entirely in lockdown are trickling in. Peter Do, the New York-based designer whom I follow since his time as studio designer at Céline, doesn’t show in the regular schedule, and this season his plan was a presentation in Paris (during men’s spring-summer 2021 collections back in June). Of course, this couldn’t work out, so he released a look-book and short video. The 2020 LVMH Prize finalist and nominee for this year’s CFDA emerging designer award is evolving, style-wise, as well as improving his signature pieces. Adaptability has been one of the hallmarks of his label since its launch two years ago. An early best seller was an adjustable jacket that separated into a bolero and a backless waistcoat. This season, he applied the concept to a technical silk dress that easily converts to an elegantly draped cape-back evening top. In this strange moment, if you are capable of spending on designer clothes rather than on the home improvements, a two-in-one that will play exceptionally well on Zoom screens is a smart bet. His chic long dresses in T-shirt jersey, including one that can be worn back to front with a tank underneath, show off a softer sensibility than this tailoring-focused designer has displayed before. Do told Vogue he was eager to break his own codes and “respond to what happens.” Also, it’s worth mentioning the accessories collaboration with Medea, a brand that makes those cool, leather “shopping bag” bags. For Peter Do, the label came up with bold colours and new sizes. One thing I don’t entirely feel in this line-up is the styling. Actually, some of the looks are over-styled, and it’s a bit hard to comprehend the garments. But then, Peter Do’s clothes are all about flexibility, so it’s really the matter of how you want to wear his clothes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Re-New. Maryam Nassir Zadeh Resort 2021

| Design & Culture by Ed

If there’s one thing you should read this weekend, it’s Irina Aleksander’s strikingly sharp and realistic feature for The New York Times on how the fashion industry collapsed, even before coronavirus became the new normal. I still believe that in the end, we will want to wear something else than just sweatshirts and sweatpants. But one specific part of this text seems to be so easy to comprehend that it’s unbelievable that the industry has never caught up with this concept: clothes aren’t food. They don’t rot after a week, neither after six months. According to Aleksander, some brands have in plans to push the unseen and unsold 2020 collections to 2021 to avoid losses. As simple as that… and yet, there’s one big obstacle. “The fascinating part is that in order to do that – to give that aged inventory value again – requires killing fashion, that nebulous deity that says something is ‘in’ this year and not the next”. So, to make it work, it’s not just about the designer – who would definitely love to take a break from everything to refuel – but the corporate floor and the customer. We should learn to slow down with that love for the “new” and appreciate what’s “now” – or at least, try to take a second look at it. To my surprise (as I already thought way back in spring that it’s a logical step to make for a lot of brands out there), for the resort 2021 season, Maryam Nassir Zadeh is probably the only designer who actually did this. She actually made old… new. Here’s how. Zadeh didn’t cut a single new garment. Instead, she put together a “hand-picked” collection of items from the past, reimagined and recontextualized for now. Years and seasons collapse in many of the looks: a white button-down from autumn-winter 2020 was styled with an ivory leather skirt from spring-summer 2020; a pair of striped shorts circa spring-summer 2019 were paired with a autumn-winter 2020 knee-high boot, redone here with a black lace shaft. Bikinis and strappy bras, often styled alone as tops nodded to her swim-heavy spring-summer 2018 show. Well… that’s brilliant! Maryam resurrected these items not just because they deserve a second look or feel newly relevant, but also because it seemed like a more sustainable way of doing things. In their walk down memory lane, Zadeh and her team only chose pieces they knew they had enough leftover fabric to make. They didn’t want to invest in making new patterns or ordering silks and wools from Italy: “It isn’t even just about sustainability in recycled materials, it’s about sustainability of time,” Zadeh told Vogue. “We never have enough time to order new fabrics from Italy, and the turnaround times [between collections] are so short.” And back to the collection: it’s quintessentially MNZ. Her sensitivity to what’s “in the air” means we will all soon be obsessed – and other brands as well. On the list are: shorter hemlines, colorful silk button-downs, men’s shirts and tailoring, anything lace, and retro embellished belts, styled here as “spice ups” on otherwise simple jersey dresses. “There’s a real personality and style to the collection,” Zadeh said. “It’s easy and wearable, but still special, because we’re mixing these strong basics with novelty accessories.” In the past, Zadeh has described that MNZ balance as “odd elegance”, and that’s still true for her eponymous label. Take notes everybody.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Like a Bird. Lee Mathews Resort 2021

| Design & Culture by Ed

If you still don’t know Lee Mathews, the Sydney-based designer making some of the most summer-perfect clothes out there, here’s a catch-up on her gorgeous resort 2021 collection. Birdwatching has become the unofficial hobby of lockdown era. Thanks to reduced air traffic, the trees outside of Mathews’s studio have become wildly populated with birds. There are no literal avians in her spring collection though – instead, the creative director followed their path to a sense of freedom, joy, and movement. Mathews’s structured dresses have even fuller skirts and poufier sleeves as a result. Pants have added legroom, too, from a jodhpur-like cargo pant to silky, wide-leg options. The danceability of these clothes was put to the test in a performance choreographed by Eliza Cooper and filmed by Martyn Thompson. Thompson, a photographer based in New York, is a longtime friend of Mathews’s. “The experience reconnected me with people I’ve known for a long time,” said Mathews of isolating in Sydney, “and something new is coming from it.” That willingness to collaborate and try something new is the best possible outcome of a world isolated and apart. “Having to collaborate outside your usual sphere to make things that resonate more is what will propel fashion forward,” Mathews told Vogue over a Zoom call. Brands much larger than hers should take note.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Colour, Volume & Fun. Bottega Veneta Resort 2021

| Design & Culture by Ed

From everything we’ve seen from Daniel Lee‘s Bottega Veneta, the resort 2021 collection is the most fun one. Was it the lockdown madness that let the designer take a more playful route? Lee has grasped that the world has changed dramatically and that the way we will want to dress has too. Hence the comfort and familiarity of that cotton and an emphasis on surprisingly homey knits, which represent an evolution of his thinking about all the stretch materials he used on his last runway. But there was no retreat into recuts or the safety of recent successes. “In the darkest moments creativity is so key,” Lee said. “It’s about making clothes you can’t find in other stores. Otherwise what’s the point?” Lee’s exploration of silhouette led him in a couple of different directions. His tailored jackets are sculptural in proportion with those full-legged pants, featuring nipped waists and a V-shaped construction in back that accentuates their shapeliness. Some of the garments look quite cumbersome, even if that exaggeration was intentional. But for all the emphasis on over-sized volumes, Lee also likes a lean, abbreviated look for women: say, a knitted top and matching fringed above-the-knee straight skirt, or a narrow minidress with one of the portrait necklines he’s made a signature. These leggy pieces have a straightforward sexiness, one that’s likely to be influential as designers and the women they dress search for the new post-crisis. But Lee undercuts the sexiness in these pictures with substantial lug-soled, lace-up boots whose vibe is cool and young. Another thing that won’t go unnoticed about this collection is its gorgeous, expressive, bold color palette, which seems to be taken straight out of Dario Argento’s Suspiria or an Almodóvar film. Lee matched a vibrant jade pair of his voluminous pants with a red tech mesh shirt, adding acid yellow pointy loafers and a chocolate brown bag for good measure. Then there’s the electric lilac hue of an A-line shearling coat, a color that reappears on a knit skirt suit and matching cardigan in what crafting circles would call the popcorn stitch, and the bubble gum pink of patent glove leather pumps with glittery acrylic heels. Fashion, at its most compelling, brings pleasure because it paints a vision of the future that looks fresh and new. If Lee’s playful printed dress in an intrecciato print of naked human bodies and the pouch bag in car seat cover wood beads the model carries with it become souvenirs of this strange lockdown season, it’s because they’re totems of a design team having fun. Who doesn’t want more of that in this moment?

All collages by Edward Kanarecki.