Design & Culture by Ed

As spring is approaching, I’ve got one collection on my mind: Ralph Lauren‘s spring-summer 2003 line-up. This one is like wine – it gets better with time. On the 20th of September in 2002, in the middle of New York Fashion Week, Lauren pitched an enormous muslin-draped tent, filled with white cushions, huge candles and twinkling crystal chandeliers – in the lush walled gardens of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Entering the building, the audience was met with trays of champagne, while the smell of tuberose and the strains of Erik Satie wafted through the evening air. If that wasn’t enough to induce a romantic swoon, the clothes would have done the trick. Lauren loves the womanly silhouette of the fin-de-siècle, with its nipped waist and curving hips. For spring he chose to highlight that silhouette with regal fabrics like damask, jacquard and silk moire, made into curvy jackets, bustiers and vests, and shown with creamy linen or silk trousers or light, pretty skirts. There were great leather pieces, gilded or printed with a wallpaper floral, and beautiful, skin-baring silk chiffon dresses. While Lauren makes no secret of his love for the past, that season he was resolutely modern: for evening, he showed a beaded top with a floor-length bustle skirt made from very distressed blue denim. This feels so good in 2022!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

I’m not into bridewear, but there’s one designer in this field that I always pay attention to. It’s been a year since Danielle Frankel, a go-to designer for fashion-forward brides, unveiled a new collection. Not a long time in terms of creative productivity, but a considerable hiatus by the standards of the fashion calendar. “When you’re talking about an evergreen product, you don’t need a collection every six months,” Frankel says. “These collections take so much to produce, and because the business is growing at the same time, we have to wedge in when we’re doing the development.” There’s certainly no shortage of clientele. Though she designs ready-to-wear as well as bridal, the latter is her bread-and-butter. She developed many of her brand signatures this season, including corsetry, bubble hems, and silk-wool pleated gowns. But everything is a bit bigger than 2021 collection‘s streamlined and sculptural offerings. “There’s a lot of the same DNA that you see in our work, but I wanted something a little bit more grand this season,” Frankel says. “Before we were known for those effortless, simple, cool styles, but for me it’s important to go bigger and move it forward.” Inspired by 1950s Vogue fashion illustrations, mid-century elegance, and surrealism, her new collection is photographed in a deliberately hazy way. Though this method of photography obscures the fine details of the clothing, it underscores the feelings Danielle hopes to evoke. That said, her designs tend to reveal themselves on the human form. The Leith gown, for instance, has a showstopping corseted bust that projects off the body and open back, but the pleats at the waist may just be the special detail that convinces the customer that this is the one. Hirsch also introduced several styles with Watteau drapes at the back, offering a more low-key kind of drama than the Leith does, while still delivering mid-century glamour. Aside from the fact that the most classic ballgown silhouette is hand-painted and hand-fringed in shades of brown, many of the tops Hirsch designed feel like true ready-to-wear. Paired with wide-leg trousers, the two bandeaus made to look like flowers are festive and relaxed.