On Another Planet. Marine Serre AW19

February 25, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

Marine Serre predicts the future. Last season, the sight of masked models might have felt sligtly too dark and painfully dystopian. Today, the threat of corona virus paralyses Europe, and people go crazy for masks. For autumn-winter 2020, Serre also sent out a number of “protection-wear” looks, but this time, some rays of bright future are seen on the horizon. “It’s quite stormy right now,” she said, “yet we have to see a future in that. It’s about finding ourselves there—understanding it and embracing it.” The designer tumbled deep down into the futurist wormhole, exploring fashion on a distant future planet. Her every-age-imaginable model cast, even feauturing the models’ actual kids, underscored that it’s about more than her own generation: we are really all in this together. There was a series of sandy denim pieces with a distressed scorched effect, allowing some new kind of warped beauty to emerge; their hue also riffed back to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, which Serre quoted on her invitation, inspired, she said, by its depiction of new communities emerging in a radically different world. Much of the collection was about perfecting existing silhouettes and focusing on Serre’s commitment to upcycling, which, she said, now accounts for fifty percent of her business (other brands, take notes!). The weaving of past, present and future together was there all the time: you could see it in the hourglass shape of a trio of collaged houndstooth coats for any gender; intricately constructed outerwear conjured out of leather and fake fur bedspreads; a passage of looks utilizing white lace trim tablecloths; the jewellery was made from pre-used stuff like vintage rings. Serre’s collection was a powerful celebration of what could come out of today’s state of the world.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Soft Geometry. Missoni AW20

February 24, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

The spotlight of the last days of Milan fashion week was stolen by the abrupt spread of corona virus in multiple of Italian regions near the city. Still, one of those closing shows just can’t be ignored: I’m speaking of the beautiful Missoni line-up. The organizing principle was geometry. Press notes made reference to the 1884 book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, in which its author, Edwin A. Abbott, made squares sexy. Angela Missoni‘s take on geometric patterns of all kinds were collaged on every manner of knit, from the most generous of belted cardigans to body-clinging ribbed tops and tube skirts. The palette was dark and moody and shot through with metallic Lurex, and as ever the patchworking of different motifs was a highlight. The navy and gold intarsia coat with slouched-on ’80s proportions is the must-have, just as all the gorgeous blazers.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Never Obvious. Bottega Veneta AW20

February 23, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

With today’s breaking news of Raf Simons co-designing Prada with Miuccia Prada (!!!!!) since next season, Daniel Lee‘s Bottega Veneta might not have that much attention it had for a while in Milan this coming September. Still, Lee evidently tries to win with the mainstream hype that started to abruptly surround the brand he shook up, and tries risky things. Painful colour combinations that look so bad they’re actually good. Volume plays that aren’t the easiest to pull off. Accessories which are distant to regular “it” bags and “it” shoes (fringed octopus clutches, rubber boots in neons). I’m aware that the audience’s memory span is too small for noticing all the Phoebe Philo and Céline references (really, every single look reminded me of a specific collection – and especially Philo’s now iconic swan song line-up, which was also the last for Daniel), so no surprise the collection’s edginess is this electrifying. For autumn-winter 2020, Lee decided to examine softness – something he has missed in his debut last year. “When you look at the brand’s beginnings, everything it made was so soft. I find that super inspiring.” That thinking informed the ready-to-wear he put on the runway. But equally, so did the fact that at the age of 34, Lee is part of the street wear generation that’s wearing trainers, sweatshirts with prints and any piece of clothing that puts an emphasis on cool and comfort. He asked himself, “How do we put ourselves together in a considered, elegant way but still feel comfortable?”. His answer was simple: stretch. Even the refined men’s tailoring was built with stretch in it, he said, so it moves with the wearer. He also put big emphasis on both knit dressing and jersey, for both day and evening. Movement is his other obsession. He said he’s been spending a lot of time at La Scala watching dance performances; he likes all kinds, from ballet to modern. No wonder why those sequinned maxi-dresses and coats with floor-sweaping XXL-fringes look so amazingly vibrant and energetic once they are worn and presented in motion. Expect this collection to sell out within hours once the pieces arrive to the stores.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Assemblage. Marni AW20

February 23, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

While the topic of sustainability seems to be utterly dormant in Milan, at least you’ve got Marni‘s Francesco Risso that takes some steps in order to address it. The collection used what appeared to be fragments of existing garments: take the cardigan dresses created from several different pieces of knitwear, each element linked with the crude stitchery of a child in a craft workshop. The remnant scraps produced in their manufacture, Risso noted, had been regenerated to create smaller elements such as the purses shaped like Victorian carpetbags or the old-fashioned wrestlers’ shoes. Risso described the effect as DIY, and the deliberate naivete continued with the magnificent finale pieces made using scraps of humble cotton fabric patchworked together with shards of cut velvet woven by hand in a factory in Venice on looms that were originally designed by Leonardo da Vinci – a vanishing, time-consuming craft that Risso understandably wants to “protect and exalt.” “They are basically our new furs,” he said of these precious garments. The collection, as the designer explained, was “collaged from the beginning to the end – from macro to micro to fractal. It’s about putting together remnants.” Julien d’Ys gold and silver dust make-up and lacquered hair on the models added even more spark to Risso’s wearable assemblage. Gorgeous.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Eat (and Wear) Cake. Moschino AW20

February 22, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

I suddenly started enjoying Jeremy Scott’s Moschino last season, when he showed the super camp intepretation of fashion-meets-art. His work lately is absolutely un-commercial, and that might be reason looking at it is so amusing. For autumn-winter 2020, he chose a total fashion cliché: Marie Antoinette. Karl Lagerfeld did a Chanel collection dedicated to her. Last season, Thom Browne had his models wear painful-looking crinolines, corsets and big hair fit for the Versailles. In Milan, Scott clashed Marie Antoinette pannier dresses with the most emblematic womenswear garment of the radical 1960s, the miniskirt. Scott’s mini pannier came in various iterations: gold brocade on denim, white biker, black biker, and toile de Jouy. This archetypally 18th-century pattern was used across the collection with the original faces of its cavorting courtiers transformed into wide-eyed anime characters. The kitschy, cake-based finale that was served was hilarious and provided total visual oversaturation with all its sweetness and icing-like details. Let them eat (and wear) cake.