Dolls in Paris. Vaquera SS26

September 30, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

At the beginning of the month, I found myself thinking about how much Vaquera’s bravado and energy are missed in New York. Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee have now fully relocated their operations to Paris, and their affection for fun and fashion – both with capital “F’s” – has an intoxicating effect. You can’t help but smile when you see their fabulous hats swathed in netting, worn so nonchalantly with draped party frocks in clashing fabrics and over-the-top volumes. Keeping things lighthearted and doll-like, their mini-dresses (some in kitschy-chic prints) were really only half a dress, suspended from one side of a pointy cup bra and paired with track pants or a faux-fur skirt. The all-striped jersey look with a draped rosette on the shoulder? It’s a clear nod to Carrie Bradshaw in Paris, when she stepped out onto her Plaza Athénée hotel balcony to gaze at the Eiffel Tower. It’s safe to say that Paris now boasts two of New York’s finest – and utterly opposite – exports: The Row and Vaquera.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Objects With Souls. Hodakova SS26

September 30, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

I really love how wildly nonconforming – and delightfully nuts – the first day of Paris Fashion Week was. Similarly to Julie Kegels, Ellen Hodakova Larsson explores the theme of deconstruction. But in her hands, the approach takes a distinctly material-driven twist. In Hodakova’s world, garments – being wearable objects – possess souls of their own.

For spring, she reimagines leather furniture covers as bulbous, body-morphing dresses; transforms vintage bed linens into oversized slips; and repurposes deadstock handbag frames as bras. The highlight of the collection, however, was the series of finale looks, which nodded to folkloric craftsmanship in a mystical, ritualistic Midsommar-esque way. Here, Larsson collaborated with Joar Nilsson of Dacapo, a Swede who recently founded a school to preserve the thatching tradition in Skåne.

The thatched mini-dress immediately brought to mind Arkadius’ spring–summer 2001 collection, where the legendary Polish designer dissected Slavic rural themes. In Hodakova’s case, however, the energy felt distinctly Nordic.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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On The Run. Julie Kegels SS26

September 30, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Julie Kegels opened Paris Fashion Week with a bonkers show – exactly the right way to launch the long week ahead and set the tone for day one: fun, bold, inventive.

I’ve been following Kegels’ work since her master’s collection “The Dinner Party“ at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Even then, it was clear that domesticity would be a central theme in the Belgian designer’s practice. Her spring–summer 2026 show unfolded inside a metro station in the 16th arrondissement. Models emerged as if on their way to an important meeting – or a party – moving with confidence, unconcerned about being late or expected. The presentation read like a story of transformation: a woman in constant motion, always just a step behind time.

That sense of the everyday marathon was brilliantly distilled in the collection. Kegels’ woman dresses in haste, between chores: bra straps hastily knotted, collars stretched and smudged with makeup, skirts slipping down as if about to fall, undergarments peeking through at every glance. Nightgowns edged in lace reappeared as daywear, with no drama attached. Imperfection lingered not as failure but as imprint: stains turned into prints, wrinkles into structure, seams into memory. And her constant companion? A garment-messenger bag, naturally.

Julie Kegels proves that fashion can be witty without tipping into gimmickry – and at the same time, wholly functional.