Her Gardens. Magda Butrym AW24

March 2, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Magda Butrym finds pleasure in experimenting and developing her language through exploration of themes close to her heart. She’s also a female designer with a unique design sensibility that joins this season’s growing discourse around the way women are designing for women. The autumn-winter 2024 collection is an unexpected journey: from the cult 1975 documentary “Grey Gardens” to a fascinating revisiting of Polish heritage. Let’s start in the East Hamptons property of the eccentric Bouvier family, where Little Edie’s singular style, characterized by shawls and veils, evolved and became fashion’s ever-self-updating inspiration. The latest collection revisits her iconic looks, like the maxi cardigan cocooning or the shearling coat reminiscent of the oversized fur she used to wear while running errands in her garden. A red, broad-shouldered blazer or double-breasted coat, highlighted with strips of shearling, contrasts with ribbed knits and matching pantyhose, creating a charismatic, off-kilter look. Residing in industrial surroundings, the two models starring in Butrym’s lookbook (shot by Vitali Gewich and styled by Jacob Kjeldgaard) are undeniably elegant, with a hint of madness, yet there is grace and lightness in their unparalleled styles.

With Magda Butrym’s universe, there’s always the return to her Polish roots. The appreciation of Polish cultural heritage is synonymous with the brand’s rose-budding ethos. The collection’s hero accessory – the headscarf – is a symbol of femininity rooted in Slavic tradition. Whether monochrome or adorned with blooming florals, the shawls embrace and safeguard the sacred essence of womanhood. Women are the custodians of ancient wisdom, myths, and legends, passing on entire mindsets to the next generations, nurturing and preserving their heritage and integrity. The headscarf as well evokes the image of Madonna, a maternal figure that stands as a timeless emblem of female empowerment. An enduring example of Polish cultural iconography depicting Saint Mary is the album cover of Maanam’s “Love is Wonderful”. Kora, the band’s iconic frontwoman, performs Miron Białoszewski’s 1956 poem “Carousel with Madonnas”, a vivid portrayal of girls and women having fun in an amusement park, resembling Madonnas painted by Renaissance masters. The urban setting of the autumn-winter 2024 lookbook – two women, two strong characters – can be read as a contemporary interpretation of female self-confidence and self-satisfaction conveyed in the track. The finale look of the collection further explores Slavic traditions and is somewhat an elusive mystery. A fringed, silk bolero jacket paired with a draped column dress and a bejeweled headscarf, all in pure white, a color representing absolute freedom and the possibility of new beginnings. What’s coming next for Magda Butrym? Watch this space.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (2.3.24)

March 2, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Porterville. Rick Owens AW24

March 1, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Rick Owens‘ autumn-winter 2024 fashion show was womenswear continuation of the “Porterville” collection that the designer presented back in January. “Porterville” 2.0., shown again at the Place du Palais Bourbon location, was equally moving and breath-taking as the menswear version. “When I’m talking about Porterville” – his California hometown, whose name appeared in an Art Deco font marching across capes – “I’m talking about oppression and intolerance, and that’s a fact of life that’s never going to go away,” he said. “Part of my role in life is to counterbalance that with this cheerful perversity.” This Owens season seems to be one of starkest examples in fashion history where a designer is processing childhood trauma in such a powerful way. Hussein Chalayan and Demna did so too, but in response to being refugees of war-torn countries. “It’s not easy for a lot of designers to be so autobiographical,” said Owens. As one of Paris’s last independent designers standing, he has fewer voices in his ear and pure independence to do as he pleases. This was a collection through which Owens takes hold of his demons, in which his gothic instincts duked it out with his inclination for goddess-y silhouettes. Batwing shoulders scraped the earlobes, puffer vests swaddled torsos like protective shells, and leather-and-down boots that riffed on the inflatable rubber ones he put on his men’s runway evoked space costumes, as if his models might’ve just returned from a walk on the moon. The deep pink dress worn by Matières Fécales’s Hannah Rose Dalton looked like it had sprouted wings in back. Incredible.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Intuition. Chloé AW24

March 1, 2024April 22, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Somehow this season, you really see the difference between how men design for women, and how women design for women. Take Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent where the all-sheer dresses impose unreal standards. And now look at Chemena Kamali‘s Chloé debut, where ease, frivolity, chic, and joy interweave, opening up a new, very promising chapter at the brand. The authentic stir of enthusiasm among female front-rowers of the show were the first sign that Chemena’s has is to make Chloé really, really cool again. Kamali knows the history of the brand inside out, and worked there as a Chloé-obsessed junior designer in the noughties under Phoebe Philo’s creative direction, and then again under Clare Waight Keller. Nobody knows better than Kamali the spontaneous feeling of it-ness that belongs to the female-centric Chloé philosophy; a power recharged through so many generations since the house was founded in the 1950s by the Jewish-Egyptian emigré Gaby Aghion as a free-spirited ready-to-wear antidote to Parisian haute couture. Kamali called autumn-winter 2024 fittingly, as the “Intuition” collection. “You know, it’s how it makes you feel and how you want to feel,” she said. “I think there’s this connection where today as a woman you need to be able to follow your intuition and be yourself. It’s very much about an intuitive way of dressing, about lightness, movement, fluidity and emotion. I also, love the power of nostalgia; where you go backwards, you go forwards – you also think of today and what women want to wear now.” The collection was triumphant remix of all things Chloé stands for. Karl Lagerfeld’s 1970s time at the brand was referenced by brilliant white scalloped-edged blouse and swirling musketeer capes, modernized with cool boot-cut flares and kitten-heel clogs. Then, we had splendid iterations of bracelet-bags and platform sandals that were Chloé’s bread-and-butter during Philo’s reign. Bananas and pineapples (redone as gilt jewelry) were nods to Stella McCartney’s tongue-in-cheek time at the house. What felt very Chemena was the ease with which she remixed the brand’s codes, and how she single-handedly gave rebirth to the style of the both real and fictional 2000s It-girls: Sienna Miller, Serena Van Der Woodsen, Kate Moss, the Olsen twins. Finally, huge lived-in bags, platform clogs, sexy denims, lingerie dresses are back, baby.