Preppy. Molly Goddard AW23

February 19, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“I wanted to go back to a place of it feeling very simple. Like it was in the beginning. Just a little bit more honest. Fundamental, kind of, saying, ‘this is our reality’… basically, I’m feeling very stubborn.” To achieve that, Molly Goddard invited her fashion show guests into her Bethnal Green studio, her work home of five years. “What I found the biggest challenge of the season was not doing the thing that actually comes to me easiest, which is like a big, bright, colorful, enormous showstopper,” said the designer. This season, she used her signature material – tulle – in much more versatile and casually applicable forms. Additionally she deployed her knitwear mindset to create texture by manipulating the warp and weft of silhouette and fabrication. Grosgrain ribbon was horizontally integrated into handsome topcoats and blazers in blue and gray that resembled cleverly rethought prep school blazers (it kind of felt very Miu Miu). Later, when she succumbed to tulle, more ribbons acted to shape the silhouette and create pattern. There was tulle too in a couple of narrow-skirted leopard-print pieces including a pink-tinted skirt, which worn beneath a blue blazer and a crewneck scarlet knit set with a design inspired by a vintage flyer from Kensington Market had a cutely skewed preppiness to it. When the voluminous showstopper came at the last, it was cut in a pale gray fabric and cut on the bias – a pointedly uncolorful showstopper. “I think I’ve just felt a little bit freaked out by the fashion world recently. It’s easy to get so pushed along, and strung along, with the whole show of it.” By pushing back – and pulling the guests all out east London – Goddard claimed her agency and delivered a collection worked on her own terms.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Magnolia. Conner Ives AW23

February 18, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Remember the 1995 documentary Catwalk, which followed Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss through the fashion month? That film captured not only the quintessence of 1990s cool, but also an image of model-hood filled with friendship, fun and mutual support. Somehow, Conner Ives managed to convey that fleating feeling in his London Fashion Week collection – and it didn’t feel forced, which is the most amazing thing. While last season’s eclectic extravaganza proved Ives can do more than just the spliced T-shirt dresses that earned him a following while still a student at Central Saint Martins, the 26-year-old designer explained that he wanted to mature things with this collection. Titled Magnolia after Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling 1999 film charting the lives and loves of a disparate group of Angelenos, it contained all of the greatest hits of Ives’s collections thus far: slinky fringed skirts made from upcycled piano scarves; diaphanous Lilith Fair slip dresses with sheer ruffles; and yes, those vintage T-shirts, here transformed into a bias-cut camisole dress trimmed with black lace. To Ives’s point, there were a few more grown-up tricks in the mix too, including a handful of retro silk button-downs and tailored trousers, along with Ally McBeal-core minimalist tailoring in muted shades of green and gray. There was also fun to be had: not least in the dizzying soundtrack, which cycled relentlessly through everything from Lil Mama’s Lip Gloss to the opening theme of Psycho. And as with last season’s smorgasbord of winking references to everything from reality TV to film history, part of the thrill was engaging with Ives’s Guess Who?game of pop culture icons from across the decades. The second look was a Kate Moss-inspired “Glasto girl” trudging through the mud in a fur gilet and Hunter wellies, while other looks paid homage to the “shiny set” of New York society women who would descend on the Paris couture shows each season, such as C.Z. Guest and Nan Kempner. Most bonkers of all was the bridal look at the end: a tongue-in-cheek nod to a wedding dress from the Lindsay Lohan remake of The Parent Trap (as well as the highly questionable top hat-veil hybrid that remains seared onto the retinas of all who have seen it). “That was really something where I was like: This is so fucking ridiculous,” Ives added, with a grin. Ives may have a winning sense of humor, but between all those granola girls and Coyote Ugly bartenders and new-age mystics with agate pendants swinging over their jeans, there was a method in the madness. Notably, a series of looks that was plumbed from the depths of Ives’s encyclopedic knowledge of ’90s and ’00s fashion: the bulbous trapeze coats, horse-riding hats, and platform Mary Janes of Nicolas Ghesquière’s influential autumn 2006 collection for Balenciaga. “I remember being a 10-year-old kid looking at that collection, having stolen a magazine from my mom’s bathroom,” Ives said. The designer is, above all else, a true fashion fanboy and it translates palpably through the clothes. “I want to emphasize that same guttural feeling I felt when I was 10 years old looking at that magazine,” he said. “I’m aware of how schlocky that sounds, but it feels messy and human and real, and I think that’s more interesting than painting some pristine picture of what fashion should be like.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Breaking and Healing. Di Petsa AW23

February 18, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

London Fashion Week started with a moving memorial service for Vivienne Westwood. The spirit of the Dame is in the air, and it just makes you reflect on how the late designer pushed London to being the place for emerging designers with off-kilter style to start their careers and evolve. Like Dimitra Petsa, who with every season makes the fashion industry fall harder in love with her ethereal world. Inspired by her Greek heritage and its ancient mythologies, Di Petsa‘s designer looked to the story of Persephone for autumn-winter 2023. For those unfamiliar: she was the daughter of the goddess Demeter, who was abducted by Hades, and then later became the queen of the underworld. With the collection, titled Breaking and Healing, the designer wanted to honor the growth and transformation that Persephone has experienced. Petsa was on her A-game with her latest offering, whether it was her popular wet-look illusion dresses, which have been elevated in Lycra and silks in dark hues, or the placements of healing crystals like clear quartz – to encourage “tenderness, and letting go” – as decorative features on dress straps and headdresses. Elsewhere, paneled leather and velvet were sensuously placed like mosaics on mesh dresses, a new technique for the brand. In a continuation from last season, Petsa developed new twists on maternity styles, only this time, certain pieces were designed for those who want to be “pregnant with themselves,” via corseted hand-embroidered bumps. Knitted denim separates with frayed panels inserted vertically also stood out as a strong moment. For the finale, she showed a cut-out silk chiffon dress that featured corset boning wings, a silhouette that elevated (quite literally) her otherworldly sensibilities.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Beatific. Willy Chavarria AW23

February 16, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

In Willy Chavarria‘s fashion show, models of all genders descended the grand staircase at the Cooper Hewitt museum looking absolutely beatific. The first look was an airy silk blouse with a pussy bow, tucked into Chavarria’s characteristically wide silk satin trousers. But it was the second look, a black trench coat with a nipped waist and a dramatically curved lapel collar that half-covered an oversized white gardenia pin and perfectly framed the model’s face that set the tone for the devastating beauty that followed. “Something I’ve been thinking about over the last few shows is really making sure that I’m learning and growing and not just delivering a new season,” Chavarria explained. “Not just thinking ‘okay, I got a new season, a new color palette,’ It’s more like, what is the climate of the world at this given moment?” Unsurprisingly the answer to that question led him to think about protection. “It’s a story of love and protection,” the designer said. A few pieces recalled mourning attire of the late 19th century, especially the slim jacket-dresses with gathered empire waists, and the dress worn by Doria Wood for their performance. The all-black collection was punctuated by shots of white. White shirts were cut from a stiffer textured oxford cloth rather than lighter poplin. They had dramatic oversized bows that held their folds and ties. Italian velvet was cut into a double breasted jacket with a contrasting satin lapel – its shoulders extending past the natural shoulder line but in a gentler curved shape rather than the angular shapes of seasons past. Another velvet jacket was lined in white satin which extended into the contrasting lapels. Although the show had a decided eveningwear focus, there were traditional ready-to-wear pieces in the mix and they retained the romantic mood of the collection. An oversized polo shirt in black satin was tucked into jet-black Dickies (an ongoing collaboration). A black denim jacket had a delicate gather in the back, and a heavyweight work jacket and matching pants were paired with one of the oxford cloth shirts with exaggerated bows at the neck. There was a sort of elegance in Chavarria’s refusal to fully embrace the rules of formal dressing. The offering might have looked similar to this recent Saint Laurent collection, but it’s coming from a totally different place.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Street But Elegant. Luar AW23

February 16, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

On the last day of New York Fashion Week, Luar presented one of the best very collections the city had in offer this season. Commotion descended onto the streets of Brooklyn as editors were forced to jostle with members of the public in order to get an eye on whatever Raul Lopez was about to showcase. But that’s precisely the level of demand that the designer triggers with his fashion moments. This is because he brings something actually new to the table, rolling back the film on his upbringing and transforming those memories into luxurious, refined designs. The first glimpse of the autumn-winter 2023 collection came via Instagram, where the designer shared a photo of an ornate sofa covered in the same plastic wrap used by Latin American households to keep their furniture fresh. It was embroidered with the words “calle pero elegante” (meaning“street but elegant”), which is the quintessence for Lopez’s approach to design. On the runway, a diverse and beautiful mixture of street cast and professional models emerged from a mirrored maze carrying supersized iterations of Luar’s signature Top Handle handbag, dressed in marvelous sculptured coat-dresses with flecks of feathery antennae sprouting from hair. Hulking shirts lurched from their shoulders and leather windbreakers had been cinched in at the waist with diamante-studded belts. Sweaters, bomber jackets, and ball gowns were treated as one and the same; cut into video vixen cocoons with cloaking hoods and tapered waists. The menswear doubled down on that bold, triangular silhouette, with blown-up shoulders on denim jackets and pinstriped blazers giving way to spliced skirts and wide-legged jeans. That’s the energy I missed in most of the New York shows. Luar saved the week with ferocious grace.