Affection. Bode AW22

October 13, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-wineter 2022, Emily Adams Bode-Aujla pushes her signature style even further, delivering a collection that showed a more daring and experimental side of her blooming menswear brand. Each Bode collection is like a lesson in history of both, America’s culture, and the designer’s personal one. Last season, the she sought inspiration in her wedding to her longtime partner Aaron Aujla, so it’s not surprising that this season the designer was thinking back to where it all began: the former apartment-studio on Clinton Street in the Lower East Side. “I lived there over seven years, and it was the place in which I started Bode,” the designer recalled. “A lot of my friends called it ‘the treehouse’ because it was seven flights up, and then it had another staircase up even further, and then this funny little makeshift roof deck also had another level.” The most obvious way that youthful inspiration was reflected in the collection was the skeleton suit onesie, which was a nod to the costume parties she threw at the apartment back in the day. But what Adams Bode-Aujla does best is capture history through objects, and for this collection, she revisited her archive as well as things she had done as one-offs for her first collection. “There were pieces that I had collected that I felt I couldn’t reproduce in the way that I have always wanted to do until now,” she explained. Out of all the collections she has done until now, this is the richest one in materials, embroidery, techniques, borne of supreme confidence in one’s abilities and an innate love of craft. A shirt embroidered with teeny beads in bold colors in a mid-century modern floral pattern seemed precious enough to live underneath glass in a museum, but here it was worn casually underneath a patchworked blue and white suit. Delicate openwork crocheted lace was used in long sleeve button down blouses in cream or in a multi-color offering that would be finely suited for any number of formal occasions. It’s this season’s outerwear that made the strongest initial impression: a cream “teddy bear” coat with three buttons and a beaded rope tied around the waist was based on a children’s coat Adams Bode-Aujla kept along with the rest of the childrenswear in her special collection, in an aluminum box possibly used during WWII to store film. A boxy jacket covered in shiny black sequins with long fringe detail at the bottom had origins as part of a woman’s evening skirt suit from the 1970s or ’80s that the designer often wore around the apartment. Two red fringed jackets, one short and one long, were the poster children for the sort of circularity that only exists in Bode’s collections. “I had this 1920s-ish dress with fringe, but it was actually made from upholstery fringe, like someone had made the dress as a costume in the 1960s,” she explained. In her hands it became an elegant take on a duster coat in 2022. It’s this wonderful circle of life that keeps Adams Bode-Aujla – and her loyal fans – excited.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Spikey. Area AW22

September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

The opening look of Area‘s first ever runway collection was quite a message. A cage dress made from bands of Japanese selvedge denim and covered in jumbo spikes around the body, sleeves and neck, was an immediate plea to be left alone, but worn with flat sandals, you could almost imagine the practical implications of wearing such a garment out in the real world – perhaps to take the train by oneself late at night? If it wasn’t obvious that underneath the spikes there was a wearable sporty denim dress, then the second look, a bustier with a sweetheart necklace and a matching miniskirt also made of denim, and featuring the season’s “folded bondage bow,” as it was named it in the show notes, finished spelling it out. At Area there is constant exploration of the liminal space between aggression and rebellion and making beautiful clothes that sell. “For me it’s always been so hard to understand that there’s this separation between stuff that you sell and stuff that you dream of,” designer Piotrek Panszczyk said after the show. “And it’s really about connecting the dots and showing people how they’re related to each other, and why both are really important.” And so if you looked beyond the jumbo spikes and the folded pyramid elements and the fantastic sculptural pieces that are Area’s signature, you’d notice the sporty jersey track pants with multicolor Swarovski details down the side worn with an easy sleeveless tank with a cutout detail at the chest, or the silver velvet jeans worn with a matching bustier. You’d also spot a series of cocktail dresses that were classic in their execution, including a purple mini dress with a pleated detail at the sweetheart neckline (“Purple is this kind of religious color, there’s something very priest-like about it, so we wanted to embrace that and twist it and show it in a different way,” Panszczyk explained). Area also announced a collaboration with Sergio Rossi for this season, who did several pairs of high heeled strappy sandals as well as a pair of flats. This certainly isn’t my favourite Area collection (feels too overworked), but big thumbs up for all the experimenting.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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La Piazzetta. Emilio Pucci AW22

September 6, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

True to her Italian roots, Camille Miceli called Emilio Pucci’s winter collection La Piazzetta, hinting not only at Capri’s famous handkerchief-sized hotspot, but also at the notion of the city square as part of Italian culture, a space open to communality and connections. These values and the idea of la famiglia, another established building block of the Italian lifestyle, are the drivers Miceli is embracing to charge Pucci with a bold new energy. For her second collection for the brand, Miceli drew from her own family and circle of friends – a motley crew of characters, talents, and generations – generously sprinkling it with her abundant joie de vivre. “My Pucci woman is an urban bohemian, she loves to travel, she’s in constant movement,” she says. “It’s the mother, it’s the daughter, it’s the grandma – as long as they enjoy life, they’re part of the community of Pucci.” Festive, bold, and colorful, the collection keeps all the label’s fundamentals alive, while introducing a few novelty notes to the mix. Knitwear was a new addition, offered in a rainbow-colored capelet with an undulating hem, or in a fringed hand-knitted, patch-worked poncho worked with horizontal intarsia. Miceli said that she was “happy to have achieved something that is Pucci, without being logo-ed by the prints in a big way.” She also used black as a thread throughout the collection, using prints as pipings, side inserts, foulard ribbons, and fringes, while widening the color palette with “some more options that reflect its character without being necessarily full-on printed.” Fringes are a Miceli signature, as they “bring frivolity to the garment,” she explained. They also give the feel of the energy and glamour that is the quintessential combination of the Pucci-Miceli connection. The Pucci woman, whatever her age, is on the move, going around in activewear-inspired zippered blousons in shiny recycled nylon printed and tiny pleated printed kilts, and weathering rainy days in protective hooded waxed ponchos boasting the lysergic Marmo pattern.

Parties are the Pucci woman’s natural habitat, and Miceli wants her to shine under the discoballs. Leggings with disco ruffles are a tribute to the effervescent charm of Raffaella Carrà, an Italian showgirl famous in the ’80s who reminds the designer of her teenage years. Miceli’s affinity for the label’s high-style bohemia was conveyed in long printed chiffon dresses with ruffled décolletages, in more sinuous, body-con options wrapped in stoles, or else in leopard-printed satiny numbers – a new introduction as “Emilio only did zebra at the time,” said Miceli. Bravissimo!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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The Beginning. Valentino AW22 Couture

July 10, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Amada mia, amore mio! Ah! ah!

For Valentino’s spectacular autumn/winter 2022 haute couture show, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli returned to Rome, where Valentino Garavani founded the storied maison back in 1959. Otherworldly bodies descending from the Spanish Steps in the golden evening sun, the romantic voice of Labrinth echoing from beneath the Trinità dei Monti… well, that was a scene. “I start from the finale, always,” Pierpaolo Piccioli said during a preview in Paris days before the show. “What I have in mind is these liquid, colourful drops coming down from the Steps, the volumes light and in movement.” He titled his show The Beginning: a return to the city where Valentino Garavani founded his maison, a place that has moved with the winds of change since the dawn of time. Like Piccioli’s Valentino, Rome’s codes may remain the same but its values are in eternal evolution. That was the sentiment behind a show he envisioned as “a conversation with Valentino” across the past, the present and the future. Piccioli had been dreaming of doing a show on the 18th-century steps. “It’s very personal. The last time Valentino did a show on the Spanish Steps was in the 1990s. It was a different moment in fashion. It was about lifestyle and the perfection of beauty, the glamour, the supermodels,” he reflected. “I wanted to get the spirit of Valentino – the joie de vivre – because I think it’s the only way of making beauty resilient to the time. On the other hand, there’s a picture I want to deliver, which is different from what it was 45 years ago. It’s the picture of what we live in. The Spanish Steps are the same, the atelier is the same, and in the end, clothes are clothes. I like to keep the rituals of haute couture. But the real difference is in the casting – in the humans – that can tell stories and witness a different moment in this world. I want to empower them and give them a voice and the opportunity to tell their own stories.”

Piccioli’s approach to the show manifested in a collection that didn’t just poeticise the decades-long legacy of Valentino Garavani, but his own contributions to the house. Rather than pursuing newness, he reflected on what Valentino stands for after 14 years under his own artistic directorship (and 23 years as an employee). Unless you’d spent those years under a rock, you’d immediately recognise the resplendent volumes of his dresses, suits and coats, the hypnotising hues of his gem colours, and the drama of his plumed headpieces bouncing like jellyfish in the stream of the Roman evening breeze. “I wanted to do a reflection about how much of myself is in Valentino, and how much of Valentino is in my identity,” he said. “It’s everything I’ve already done but in a different place.” Piccioli’s era at Valentino has followed a time of political divide when the progressive values he fights for – the diversity, inclusivity and self-expression represented in his casting – are contrasted by a rise of reactionary ideas that has only become terrifyingly evident with recent American Supreme Court rulings. In that sense, moments like the Spanish Steps show – these grand gestures of beauty – are a kind of activism on his part. It may be wrapped in majestically coloured taffeta, three-dimensional geometric plumage painstakingly made to evoke Roman mosaics, or voluminous hand-sequined suits, but at the core of Piccioli’s haute couture is a dream that cuts deeper than mind-blowing craftsmanship. “I believe that it’s my responsibility as a fashion designer to bear witness to the times we’re living in,” he said. “I think that beauty has the power to break through, touch people and their conscience. Taking a radical posture through a strong narration and through images of a world that’s changing has an impact, and gives visibility to values that have to be protected. I believe fashion can be political.” With the likes of Naomi Campbell and Anne Hathaway on the front row the show was testament to the global impact of the new age of haute couture that Piccioli has spearheaded in recent years. But as illustrated by the people who joined them – Valentino’s co-founder Giancarlo Giammetti, Piccioli’s family, and their dog Miranda – it’s a success achieved through a grounded approach to the industry, to the mainstream fame he has gained, and everything that comes with it. At the heart of Piccioli’s progression-driven age of Valentino are a realness, friendliness and ease that remain his greatest assets.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Clean and Sleek. Fendi AW22 Couture

July 9, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

This haute couture season, it seemed that the collections’ backdrops were as important as the clothes. Immense theatralization of the fashion show was a recurring theme, from Schiaparelli to Margiela. So it was quite refreshing to see the total white-cube space as Fendi’s venue. But did Kim Jones‘ couture line-up stand up for itself? “Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress.” Karl Lagerfeld coined this permanently true aphorism – one of the sparkling fashion quotes he dashed off in a zillion interviews. Kim Jones didn’t drop it into backstage conversation about his Fendi haute couture collection, but he might’ve, since essentially what he sent out met the Lagerfeldian standard of t-shirt-y elegance; a show of uncomplicated, minimal dressing realized in the most expensive of materials. For starter, a trio of Max-Mara-like looks, two tailored trouser suits and a long turtleneck sweater dress with a slashed skirt and sash in a Vicuna brown. Then came tailoring, and a molded bustier in paler shades of slightly pink-tinged beige: Fendi’s specialty calf leather. And then, calmly on with the abbreviated lines of the t-shirt dressing. There were slim tank dresses, made of rolled metallic bugle-beads, asymmetrical long-sleeved patchworks of Japanese silk kimono fabric commissioned by Jones from traditional makers in Kyoto, and beaded deco-style pajamas. Jones explained in a preview that the pair of outstandingly lovely shimmery silver sequinned bias cut slip dresses had been made from swatches Karl Lagerfeld had commissioned which had been archived and never used. For the finale there were a few spicier, sheer “nude” dresses. In overall, it all looked like a proper couture collection. Not sure it felt like a Fendi one, though, even with all the subtle Lagerfeld references.