During the Australian Fashion Weeks, I always look forward to Jordan Dalah’s collections. His resort 2023 show was ‘camp’ – not in the Susan Sontag way, but in the literal way. Guests arrived to find comfortable camping chairs instead of the expected benches, while the modern ensembles saw Dalah embrace colour and the beauty of the outdoors. The transparent dress with pegs inside the hems saw an unconventional take on classic Australian backyard imagery, and was a highlight for many. Dalah possesses the distinct ability to combine Australian optimism, raw materials and fearless innovation with European craftsmanship and distinct elevated aesthetic – a skill which can be attributed to his time at Central Saint Martins. The collection saw Dalah expand on his existing vocabulary of voluminous silhouettes, signature hemlines and avant garde expressionism by returning to his Australian roots with designs that are fit for prêt-à-porter release. The collection’s “statement” look came in the form of two ultra-wide, flowing maxi dresses with lengthy trains. It’s delivering nothing short of high-fashion meets grand couturier meets avant garde editorial realness.
It’s been a while since I truly enjoyed a Louis Vuitton collection by Nicolas Ghesquière. Something clicked again for me. The collection was a powerful ode to goddesses – of the past, present and future. The resort 2023 line-up – presented in La Jolla, California – was a wonderful reminder of how forever-forward this Parisian designer is.
His two post-pandemic Paris shows and the one shown in USA, form a sort of trilogy, starting in the 19th century, making a pitstop in the ’90s of his own post-adolescence, and zooming off into a utopian future. At all three Ghesquière has set out to break down dress codes and build up complex silhouettes. And here’s another Vuitton epic: Ghesquière has made a tradition of staging his cruise shows at architectural marvels. John Lautner’s Bob Hope House in Palm Spring, Oscar Niemeyer’s Niteroi Museum in Rio de Janeiro, I. M. Pei’s Miho Museum outside Kyoto, and now the Louis Kahn-designed Salk Institute in La Jolla. Kahn’s masterpiece, its monumentality is matched by its humanity, but Ghesquière was as switched on by its setting as by its Brutalist concrete. “The guest of honor for the show is the sun,” he said poetically. “The elements are invited.” This was a collection about playing with those elements. He chose metallic fabrics and embellishments that reflected the setting sun, some as glassy as mirrors, and other materials that offered protection from it, wrapping long swathes of linen, for example, around the head and across the body. Other pieces lifted design details from water sports; the airbrushed colors of half tops and boxy short skirts apparently came from jet skis. Ghesquière is a designer whose collections are minutely pored over and studied, and some of these gestures looked like callbacks to earlier seasons, only amplified, maximal where he used to be minimal and streamlined. The show began and ended with a bang. The opening dresses, one more voluminous than the next, were cut from robust jacquards (he compared them to molten lava) that looked like they really could’ve repelled enemy fire. The effect was almost stately, but for the soft-soled sneakers they padded out on. At the finish came a trio of jackets with enormous sculpted collars as shiny as armor perched above tinsel sleeves. These were extraordinary: imaginative and otherworldy. Ghesquière was firing on all creative cylinders here, creating a positive feedback loop. You left wanting to be one of his Amazon superheroine goddesses.
Design & Culture by Ed 