HARMONIOUS SUBLIMITY 🧡 #DACBE: #HedMayner‘s menswear collections are Paris Fashion Weeks’ moments of harmonious sublimity. In his notes, Mayner made it clear that he doesn’t do “overwrought statements of seasonal quirk.” Rather, season after season he revisits scaled-up proportions, honing them as a sculptor might. “I started by trying to build a silhouette that has a strong contact between front and back, and just being this two-dimensional look with a contrast,” the designer offered backstage of his #SS23 line-up. More on the JOURNAL ⏳ #PFW #Paris #ParisFashionWeek #Menswear #ManFashion #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🧺 #collage by me.
WHAT’S MODERN? 🧤 #DACBE: #JonathanAnderson is nailing it again, being in his cheeky, surreal element. For men’s #JWAnderson #SS23, the said he’d been moved by “the shock of theater” to shape a collection that tested our perceptions of clothing and modernity. The BMX handlebars, shattered skate decks and CDs were there to remind us of the ephemerality of modernity, and its inevitable descent into anachronism. The wearable assemblages were a witty commentary regarding overconsumption. “Fashion is a very modern device,” he said. “But it is not a modern act.” More on the JOURNAL 👖 #Milan #MilanFashionWeek #MFW #Denim #Resort2023 #DACBECOLLECTIONS 👔 #collage by me.
SURFBOARD 🏄🏼♂️ #DACBE: For #SS23, #DsQuared2 went surf-boy-mode. Dean and Dan Caten’s layering extravaganza inspired by surf culture and 1970s Jamaica is just what a stinking-hot summer wardrobe needs and wants. The Catens worked with the Bob Marley Foundation, which granted them permission to reproduce a portrait of the reggae genius on T-shirts, beach totes, and bags. “We liked the vibe of that time, and the freedom and rebellion he represented,” they said backstage. “Peace and love, and the joy of music.” More on the JOURNAL 🌺 #MilanFashion #Milan #MFW #SurfBoard #SurfBoy #SurfLife #VanessaReid #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🐚 #collage by me.
ARRIVAL ✨ #DACBE: For her brilliant #SS23 collection, #GraceWalesBonner mentioned “Sankofa”. This bird-looking-backwards symbol of Ghana’s Akan people, she said: “means’ ‘going back to go forward.’ It is not about being nostalgic or historical. It’s about taking something from the past in order to pass it forward and make it useful for the future. And that’s the spirit of this collection.” #WalesBonner was speaking in the central courtyard of #Florence’s #PalazzoMediciRiccardi, the key space of #PittiUomo event. The Palazzo had been waiting 485 years – the time since it was once home to the first Black head of state in modern Europe – to become the outbound runway for Grace’s Sankofa flightpath. Its starting cipher was #AlessandroDeMedici, who until his assassination in 1537 at the hand of a cousin ruled here as the first hereditary monarch of the Florentine Republic. His mother was named #SimonettaDaCollevecchio – aka “Soenara” – and was Black. She became mother to Alessandro after an encounter with either Duke Lorenzo (the official father) or Pope Clement VII. “I wanted to acknowledge that presence but also think about the idea of arrival,” said Wales Bonner. More on the JOURNAL ❤️🔥 #Menswar #ManFashion #KerryJamesMarshall #LiyaKebede #DACBECOLLECTIONS ❣️ #collage by me.
IT’S HOT, HOT 👄 #DACBE: “I never gave up on being dressed, even when the trend was about sportswear,” says #SaintLaurent’s #AnthonyVaccarello of his #PreFall2022 collection, the until-now-unseen curtain raiser to his sublime and epic winter show, presented earlier this year. “I am glad that people want to dress up again, because for me nothing has changed.” More on the JOURNAL 💄 #SoChic #ItsHot #FauxFur #YSL #Sublime #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💋 #collage by me, music: “Heroin” by #LanaDelRey.
IMBUED WITH MEANING 🌞 #DACBE: At the #NewYork-based brand #Bode, #EmilyAdamsBodeAujla’s collections have always been rooted in the persona. The lived histories of friends, family members, and even places all hold keys that unlock the fantastical trove of embroideries, embellishments, prints, and colors that have established Bode as one of the most exciting new American labels on the scene. For #PreFall2022, now hitting the stores, however, Adams Bode Aujla turned inward, looking for inspiration to her own wedding to her longtime partner and collaborator #AaronAujla, which took place in their newly purchased home upstate and brought together Punjabi traditions from his upbringing as well as ones from her mixed Southern/East Coast heritage. More on the JOURNAL 🌼 #Marigold #Tailoring #ClothesThatTellStories #Menswear #ManFashion #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💛 #collage by me.
LOVE YOURSELF 🪐 #DACBE: She’s THE #Mugler goddess-babe-bombshell-queen. For #SS22, #CaseyCadwallader reunited with #TorsoSolutions for the final installment of a trilogy of Mugler fashion films. Filmed in Los Angeles, the mind-bending video features a variety of vignettes that blend trippy glitches with the signature Mugler fierceness. Another day, another slay, period. More on the JOURNAL 🔥 #LourdesLeon #MeganTheeStallion #BellaHadid #HaleyWollens #ChloeSevigny #Goddess #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🌪 #collage by me (2/3), music: “Plan B” by Megan Thee Stallion.
TABULA RASA ☁️ #DACBE: To create a responsible brand in the 2020s entails more than choosing sustainable materials and cutting down on manufacturing and shipping costs. As #Gabriela Hearst, the creative director of #Chloé sees it, building awareness into the marketing plan is part of the process. “The problems fashion has are the problems that all industries have,” she said. “The world’s energy supply is 85% from fossil fuels, and if we don’t eliminate that situation we’re really walking into suicide. All these alternate energy sources – wind power, solar panels – don’t have the capacity.” Fusion, Hearst explained, could make up the difference as we wean ourselves off of oil. “In a nutshell,” she said, “fusion is how stars are made. It’s the energy that moves the universe.” For #Resort2023, the fusion lesson consisted of broderie anglaise and laser cut leather in the form of stars and a night sky palette of strictly black and white, save for a single red dress with a scoop neck and full poet sleeves. She credited Joel Cohen’s recent adaptation of “The Tragedy of Macbeth” for the corset shape of dresses accented with knotted leatherwork evocative of medieval chainmail, and leather jackets and vests patchwork paneled like armor. More on the JOURNAL 🌬 #Chloe #Pleats #SustainableFashion #DerekJarman #DACBECOLLECTIONS 🌪 #collage by me, music: “Restraint” by Florence + The Machine.
WALL STREET STORY 💰 #DACBE: As the Lana Del Rey song goes, “Money is the reason we exist, Everybody knows it, it’s a fact (kiss, kiss)“. With a heavily ironic sense, that’s what #Demna meant with his #Resort2023 #Balenciaga show, which was presented last week in #NewYork. Not just anywhere – the show began with the ringing of the opening bell at the kingdom of capitalism, the #NewYorkStockExchange. The floor traders had been replaced by Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Chloe Sevigny (and her husband Siniša Mačković), Megan Thee Stallion, Frank Ocean, and the city’s Mayor Eric Adams. The loaction couldn’t be more unsettling: #WallStreet has taken quite a hit these past few weeks; headlines about a looming recession abound. But that suits the Balenciaga creative director just fine. Demna has never shied away from darkness or menace, and this show was no exception. More on the JOURNAL 💵 #DemnaGvasalia #Adidas #LatexFashion #TrackSuit #MoneyPowerGlory #DACBECOLLECTIONS 💸 #collage by me.
Design & Culture by Ed 