Traces of Living. Miu Miu SS24

October 6, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Miu Miu is the Sofia Coppola of fashion. With this brand, Miuccia Prada tells stories of girls (on the verge of womanhood) trying to navigate the fascinating, particular world we live in. The spring-summer 2024 collection, which is the cherry on top of this never-ending fashion month, explores a rationale of beauty today, beauty, that echoes the complexity of our era. Miuccia has a solution: instead of rigid paradigms, there is a radical expansion, a rich plurality. Not beauty, but beauties, an embracing of unique characters, the joy of life. With that in mind, the designer re-established the Miu Miu silhouette that’s seen recent collections fly off the shelves: skimpy hemlines expressed in knickers (worn as daywear), shorts and tiny tennis skirts paired with oversized blazers, bombers and coats. Triangular tops styled with low-slung tailored trousers continued the 2000s vibe beloved by a new generation of shoppers.

The collection was underpinned by a decidedly preppy mood that riffed on an American idea of ease: crested jackets over polo shirts over shirts worn with Bermuda shorts. There’s that intriguing “realness” about the recent Miu Miu collections. This time, Prada imbued her garments and accessories with what she called “traces of living”: marks on leathers and suedes, and fabrics that faded as if they’d been washed too many times. She called the pre-worn sensibility an expression of “existing love” demonstrated by the repeated use of clothes. A similar sensibility was reflected in the “real” styling (done wih Lotta Volkova’s assistance) of the slightly dishevelled layering of dresses, jumpsuits, cardigans and T-shirts, which evolved the barely-got-out-bed look that characterised last season’s collection. As a brilliant nod to real life, the toes of flip-flop-wearing models were adorned wore neon-coloured plasters. That sense of realness was also embrace by a diverse cast. Singer Troye Sivan flew the flag for the Miu Miu boy, while the artist Petra Collins and the photographer Eddy Aldridge wore “misfit” eveningwear. The Sofia Coppola reference perfectly materialized in the appearance of Cailee Spaeny, the actress who stars as Priscilla Presley in the latest work of the director.

Collages by Edward Kanarecki.
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In Search of Character. Chanel SS24

October 6, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Virginie Viard wanted her Chanel collection to feel effortless, but in the end, it appeared to be cluttered with too many ideas. Her vision for Chanel is at its best when she goes minimal – that wasn’t the case this time. “This collection is an ode to liberty and to movement, and tells a story that has its origins in the gardens of the villa Noailles,” the designer said of her spring-summer 2024 offering. The designer referenced the property – which was designed by the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1923 for Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, friends of Coco Chanel’s – which sits up in the hills of Hyères in southern France. “Facing south, the villa’s volumes and outdoor spaces – from its cubist chequered garden to its sunken flower beds – light up the SS24 collection with an intense vitality,” the show notes read. “The exhilaration of light and colour, the profusion of geometric patterns, the play of contrasting asymmetries, patchworks, lines, checks and stripes give rhythm to a collection that sets out its own idea of elegance and insouciance.” These prints featured throughout the collection, while silhouettes were breezy, heels were flat and everything was styled with a relaxed attitude. As Cathy Horyn wrote in her The Cut review, Viard knows how to use the Chanel codes, but she’s having a hard time creating a truly appealing character.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Particular Chic. Louis Vuitton SS24

October 6, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

At Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière offers a particular take on the joy of dressing up. Ghesquière called upon the American production designer James Chinlund to construct a runway that would the convey the feeling of being inside a hot air balloon. For that reason, the Louis Vuitton collection made lightness its point of departure in buoyant garments that evoked the breezy, billowing effect of sails. The idea of the hot air balloon set an adventurous mood for the show, entirely in the vein of Ghesquière whose approach to Louis Vuitton’s voyaging genes is often rooted in the dream of time travel. He expressed it in a collection, which defied the constraints of eras and dress codes and freely spliced together silhouettes and wardrobes in a dynamic, Pierrot-ish look that jumped between the 1950s and the ’80s (like the Yves Saint Laurent-inspired padded jackets), with occasional 19th-century stopovers. Patterns became the focal point of the collection: English checks were twisted and turned into billowing blouses and sharply-cut flowy skirts. Stripes increased the graphic value in shirts and trousers borrowed from the men’s wardrobe and magnified in expression. Scarf-like chain prints found their way onto skirts, and checkerboards and vintage-y houndstooth animated broad-shouldered jackets.

Floating. Mugler SS24

October 5, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Nature is healing: Mugler is back on the Paris Fashion Week schedule. For spring-summer 2024, Casey Cadwallader – inspired by his love of ocean life and its sci-fi creatures – transformed his runway into an aquarium. To create the effect of garments floating through water, large industry fans were situated along, and at the end of, the runway – with silks and chiffons trailing behind the models like some magnificent jellyfish moving through the ocean. Anok Yai nailed it in her ethereal finale walk. The look worn by Mariacarla Boscono was a black, wasp-waisted body plate made of a wet-look resin. Blazers were structured, square and cropped. On body suits, sequins combined with tinseled feathers – reminiscent of the most elaborate fish in the sea. Denim arrived in the shape of a standout jacket with a corseted-waist. Body-con dresses were present, none more striking that Amber Valletta’s cut-out atop of a corset dress. And while some garments were sheer, most were transparent, with extra pieces dangling from their uneven hemlines to create the illusion of seaweed. “I think I’m interested in the ideals and goals of performance and transformation – the idea of clothing that allows you to become a different version of yourself, or one of the many versions of yourself that you like to inhabit,” Cadwallader told the press. “I think that Mugler’s theatricality is quite deep actually – it’s not just about how it feels for the audience to watch a good show, but instead about how the garments shape and provoke and inspire the person wearing them. Who they become when in them. It’s really about the power of clothing, the impact of fashion.” Noted.

Madame X. Maison Margiela SS24

October 5, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

It was a great joy to see John Galliano thrive with his return to Paris Fashion Week schedule. This Maison Margiela collection felt like just the right balance of Galliano’s romanticism, and the brand’s knack for garment deconstruction. Imagining how a young, present-day descendant might customise an inherited wardrobe, the designer proposed a series of “exfoliage” dresses where the top layer of the bust had been ripped off and pulled down over the skirt to reveal its lining. He’d then boldly run that silhouette over with a laminate roller and covered the fabric in high-shine varnish, creating a relief effect where it was layered. He evolved that technique in “pressage” dresses and shirts, which you have to imagine came out of a suitcase completely flattened after which they were laminated, their creases and drapes pressed down for eternity. In the “misfit” evening dresses the closed the show, Galliano evoked the gestures of DIY party girls, shortening hems with tape, twisting necklines into straps, and styling pieces back-to-front. Galliano scored the show with the powerful song “Masculinity” by Lucky Love. Its lyrics – “Do I walk like a boy, do I speak like a boy, do I stand like a boy” – served as a reminder of the genderless attitude with which he approaches fashion. With that in mind, the Katharine Hepburn-esque tailoring fused with gestures from the mid-century lady’s wardrobe in a string of coats and suits that nailed our burgeoning appetite for elegant ease and simplified sophistication. Later, Galliano continued his tailoring story in jackets cut in the image of mid-century mauvais garçons – street urchins – and the gestures that shaped their clothes. Galliano cast those movements with Oscar-worthy gusto.

This wonderful Maison Margiela moment was creativity-driven and life affirming: a designer having a ton of fun with fashion, but executing his ideas with the most inventive, cutting-edge expertise. Often its most immediate effect lies simply in the gesture of a mid-century hat made from wire and bin liners, or a polka dot you suddenly realise looks like a cartoon character, or the sassy walk of a model who finally gets to have a good time on a runway. All this, of course, is a product of the authentic and truly passionate love of fashion that compels this designer to imagine stories, dress up its characters in his mind, and execute those fantasies in real life.