Art

Tough Femininity. Elena Velez AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Elena Velez held her show at the Freehand Hotel, transforming its Georgia Room, typically a bar, into a bare-bones space, accompanied by a soundtrack that began with a woman repeating “She was a disgrace to all women.” It was a cheeky way to start off a presentation whose theme celebrated women and their different forms of femininity. As for Velez’s version of femininity, it’s tough and gritty. She’s from Milwaukee, the only child of a single mother who is a ship captain. Velez stresses that she has her own unorthodox perception of womanhood, which, through her creations, has turned out to be wildly confident, a bit aggressive, and very hot. Much of her success can be credited to her great handle on the “tough femininity” dichotomy in her designs. The Parsons graduate uses fabrics that are made to last and have a military-grade toughness. Some of these materials include army canvas, Lake Michigan ship sails (a nod to her mother), and parachutes. More often than not, Velez doesn’t cover the original serial numbers on the fabric but instead keeps them in the final design, another grit-factor addition. According to the designer, the use of these materials is to show tension within womanhood. While Velez stresses toughness in her design ethos, there is no clunk in the pieces. The silhouettes are sensual and curve skimming. Corsets were a theme in the collection, sometimes deconstructed with sliced-off sections. Peasant tops, once romantic and woo-woo, were incredibly alluring, cinched at the waist with a boning motif. Even the long and loose and flowy ivory dresses, which could have been the nightgown of every bedridden Victorian woman, had sex appeal thanks to the artful way a strap hung off the shoulder or how the boning traced the body. The final image of the collection has all the essense of Velez’ vision: a striking model closed the show while carrying a cherubic baby and wearing a black dress with a sharp oval cutout stretching from the sternum to below the navel. Truly a stunning version of femininity.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Easy Formality. Proenza Schouler AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Here we go – it’s New York Fashion Week, the most IRL one since the start of pandemic. This season it’s opened by a very New York collection, coming from Proenza Schouler. And this isn’t just another line-up, but a collection that celebrates Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough‘s 20th year in business. Take a look back at the Parsons graduation collection that started it all for them in 2003, and you will notice that much has changed in the intervening decades. The brand had its ups and downs throughout the years, and for a couple of seasons now it consequently heads towards a sort of sophisticated, yet aesthetically minimalist formality. “Comfort” and “ease” are fashion’s buzzwords of the moment, relics of a lockdown that remain even as the emergence we’ve been hoping for starts to take shape. The corseted silhouettes that were the first Proenza Schouler signature, however, have been completely rethought for today, constructed from machines that knit in circles, allowing for a seamless, molded look. Can a strapless dress with volume evocative of 18th-century panniers really feel effortless? Yes, if it’s in sculpted knitwear with a circular bias-cut skirt. Hernandez and McCollough gave their tailoring the same waisted look by accessorizing suits with torso-spanning body shapers, or by cutting jackets and coats to wrap across the midriff and button off to the side, the cloth equivalent of a firm hug. If this outing was a reappraisal of their past, it wasn’t reliant on it. A loose-fitting shirtdress with a fluid looped hem stood out for its color, a vibrant purple that they’ve avoided before. The animal print is another new indulgence – here it was deliberately glitched, as if the color didn’t take in the folds and creases of the fabric as it went through the machine.

It’s a strong collection coming from the Proenza boys, yet I just can’t get rid of the impression I constantly have with them since a couple of seasons. The brand had its Phoebe Philo’s Céline phase, then a New Bottega obsession, and now… The Row era? That’s the thing – in the beginning of Proenza Schouler, the brand was so distinct you just couldn’t mistake it with any other brand. Now, it echoes those brands-of-the-moment that emphasize the less is more rule in the most refined and luxurious ways. Is it really what the brand stands for? Does it have to fill that (heavily oversaturated) niche? If there’s one thing to reflect on while celebrating the anniversary, then it’s retrieving the label’s real, authentic voice.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Dancing Silhouettes. Rosie Assoulin Pre-Fall 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

Dancing and the beauty of the body in motion definitely had to be on Rosie Assoulin‘s mind for pre-fall 2022. The pleated celery green ensemble looks even more phenomenal when you’re twirling in it, while the watercolour blue ball-skirt in plaid just begs to dance the night away. These ultra-feminine silhouettes feel so light and expressive, but are far from non-sense. Actually, this collection is a harmonious balance of the dramatic and functional. Even though she’s known primarily as an evening wear expert, Assoulin is a master of convertibility. “I like the idea that a woman might at some point change her mind later on,” the designer said. Examples? The white cloqué henley dress with a black bra insert can be buttoned up or down to show as much of the undergarment as you wish. A plaid blazer comes with removable sleeves that can give the look of opera gloves. Assoulin’s commitment to convertibility and adaptability under all the glamour prevails in her new season designs. “The appetite I have is definitely for exciting graphic, dramatic pieces, but it’s not my life,” she said. “So I have to find how I can bring [ease and drama] together.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

E-Girl Knitwear. Paolina Russo AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

“When I started this collection I was reflecting on who I wanted to be as a designer,” reflects Paolina Russo. “In the past I’ve been the sporty colorful girl, but I didn’t really get to show the breadth of my world.” Google Russo’s name and the sporty, colorful ethos definitely dominates her results. It’s what has made retailers like Ssense buy into her collection and megabrands like Adidas seek her out for collaborations. But there’s more than meets the eye to Russo’s oeuvre. Born to a family of collectors in Canada, Russo inherited a certains sentimentality and nostalgia. For autumn-winter 2022, she’s plumbing her youth, morphing video game heroines with aloof suburban teens. Knitwear is a main focus, with fully fashioned wool pieces in tonal colorways. Russo is a master of the stitch, turning cable knits into corset boning and draping a midi-skirt to hang from slinky hip bone cutouts. She’s pulled on her snowboarding past to create padded sleeve jackets that evoke ski gear. The few cut-and-sew pieces have a video game look, with neon insets and pleated skirts. On the whole, her collection pushes the Paolina Russo brand to a more essential level – not just show pieces but real everyday clothes. Let’s see where she goes next.

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Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Tropiques. Diotima Pre-Fall 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

Barely a year old, Rachel Scott’s brand, Diotima, is both a rich collaboration with and an homage to her home country, Jamaica. At her hands, crochet – crafted by a group of female artisans in Jamaica – is reimagined to unique effect and paired with coolly slouched tailoring. One thing that’s impressive about Scott is how she manages to make an oversized grandpa suit fit in with a barely-there crochet dress akin to a fishing net. She blends sexy and prim to interesting effect. This season, her new crochet dress is basically a tank top with really elongated straps, a waistband, and hand-applied crystals. The model wears it with nothing underneath, but a slip skirt would fit in just fine. The best suit is made from a laminated woven textile with a crochet appliqué on the leg; you get both a clash of textures and a flash of upper thigh. Scott has collaborated with Nadia Huggins, an artist from St. Vincent who takes arresting underwater photographs. They created a “Tropiques” print featuring a sea urchin, sand dollar, and snake on a soft woven fabric. “She thinks of her whole project as creating a new Caribbean archive and one that has a new subjectivity,” Scott says. In a typically cheeky move, one of the dresses totally covers the model from neck to wrist to ankle, save for a crochet panel across the bust and a super-high leg slit, but she also offers the print in more demure button-downs and a shin-length skirt. The sea motif continues in the use of moire and a sea urchin corset. Scott describes a pair of pants modeled after cricket uniforms, with shell-like pads on the knees, as a continuation of the Caribbean influences.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.