Stretchy Desires. Balenciaga SS17

October 9, 2016October 9, 2016 | Design & Culture by Ed

Honestly, Balenciaga‘s spring-summer 2017 collection has been the most anticipated show of the entire Paris Fashion Week. First, it’s the second collection designed by Demna Gvasalia, the guy you already know from Vetements. Second, every editor was dying to see what direction will Demna take for the house. The debut collection ranked up high with its puffa jackets and appealing corporate dress-code, but you need the second try to understand a creative director’s vision.

Spoiler: the newest collection confirms that Gvasalia was created for his job at Balenciaga.

When Cristobal Balenciaga founded his house, the brand was focused on haute couture. In the most unobvious ways, Demna revives Balenciaga’s couture elements since his first season, reinterpreting the brand’s archives and writing a new chapter. For spring, the Georgian designer explores the intimate relationship between couture and fetishism – two unlikely things that in fact are closely related to each other. Obsessive interest in achieving a result of absolute beauty, which goes in pair with wearing couture, is dangerously connected to a nearly sexual pleasure. When Cristobal’s maison was at its peak, a synthetic, stretchy fabric appeared in 1958 – spandex. Of course, Balenciaga’s aesthetic didn’t match with such nonchalance of spandex at those times. But in 2016, Demna feels a strong connection between ‘kinkiness’ of spandex, and haute couture’s endless desire of looking perfect.

Just like couture, spandex isn’t easy. But this didn’t stop Demna and his studio to send out a line of models wearing spandex in the brightest colours and the most eye-catchy, floral prints. The stilettos (which transformed into leggings-like pants) were jaw-dropping. He kept them in purple, orange, pink and even white in order to nail it to the fullest. The semi-shoes, semi-pants looked eerily sexy and glamorous, to a surprise. Gvasalia’s thing for fetish didn’t end here: latex capes, extremely sleek silhouettes and patent leather were the show’s highlights, too.

Gvasalia’s troubled youth in Georgia affected his future mind. When he was young, he was starving for the new; now, he can easily convey those childhood cravings into a multifaceted collection for a very grown-up house. Striped market totes resembled the bags from bazaars, which stored fake Adidas and Levis, so well-remembered to the generation of the post-Iron Curtain. Ornamental brooches made me think of cheesy souvenirs which are easily available in the nearest Euro-shop. The nails with zircons had a lot to do with the 2000s Paris Hilton over-the-top style. And then, the music that still hides in the depths of your grandpa’s Nokia: Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game“. The final effect? Demna left the guests panting and drooling over his jackets with shoulder pads, granny dresses and trench-parkas. Buying all of that.

What’s Coming for SS17?

August 18, 2016August 19, 2016 | Design & Culture by Ed

Via @natalia_misbhv

So, what’s coming for the spring-summer 2017 season? New designers debutting at big houses; young labels that will steal the spotlight; beauty cannon redefining moments; grear and bad collections. But, why are we thinking about summer of the next year? Note: first days of September – New York Fashion Week kicks off. And August is about to end soon…

On the 10th of September, Natalia Maczek and her team will hit New York with a first ever, MISBHV presentation. Coming straight from Cracow, Poland, the streetwear brand (adored by my friends here) is known for its über-cool, defiant aesthetic. Think gothic fonts, over-sized everything and strip-tease platforms. You might think it’s a wannabe Vetements – but no, MISBHV was nailing it on the Polish streets long time before the French collective’s fame.

It’s hard being a young and independent fashion designer in Paris, fighting for attention in the crowd of Chanel-s, Balmain-s and Vuitton-s. But still, a wave of young, French designers thrives to convey their vision of fashion. Meet Koché, the creation of Christelle Kocher, the new girl in the schedule and a second-time LVMH finalist .“I’m sharing my Paris with other people,” is how she described her AW16 unusual venue of her fashion – the 18th-century Passage du Prado, which nowadays is adopted by African hairdressers and little mobile phone shops. So, no – it’s not Grand Palais or a Rue Saint Honore showroom. I tell you – keep Koché on your radar.

Sander Lak, the man behind Sies Marjan, is into the 90s, and that might be the reason why his pastel-pink pieces got sold out within the minutes on-line. Although AW16 was his first season, the New York-based designer, takes it easy in the fashion industry. With his experience (he used to work at Dries Van Noten) and colour sensibility, I bet he will pull off another, jaw-dropping outing this season.

London is burning with talents, and Fashion East understands the needs of young individuals. That’s why, the SS17 scheme is really exciting: we’ve got A.V. Robertson, who envisions another dimension of embroidery and embellishment; there’s Matty Bovan, a LVMH prize winner, who worked (together with Robetson) on Marc Jacobs’ prints, and collaborated with Miu Miu on their latest presentation. We will also get to know Mimi Wade and Richard Malone closer during the upcoming London Fashion Week.

Anthony Vaccarello was announced as the new creative director at Saint Laurent, and his debut in Paris will tell, whether he’s able to take a big house under his wings. There are three options – he will go Hedi Slimane’s path, delivering a grunge-y set of clothes; he will do it the way he does it at his namesake label; or, he will literally shock everyone. I hope that the last option becomes true. For now, there’s a lot of Anja Rubik on his Instagram.

Maria Grazia Chiuri is another designer who will soon debut at a major, French maison. Well, in fact she switched Valentino for Dior. Good for Dior.

Boucher Jarrar‘s start at Lanvin isn’t the best. Just take look at her “first” collection, so resort 2017. Sure, pre-collections should be commercial, but… they shouldn’t be that boring Alber Elbaz’ frivolous legacy is erased for good, while Jeanne Lanvin’s quintessence is barely here. Time will show, whether Bouchra’s clean minimalism does any good for Lanvin.

Demna Gvasalia‘s debut at Balenciaga is already behind us – but I can’t wait to see what is he up to for spring-summer 2017.

September, come!

Haute-Collab. Vetements SS17

July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 | Design & Culture by Ed

Haute couture, or high dressmaking, refers to the art of creating exclusive, custom-fitted fashion for awfully rich women (and men). Couture is constructed by so called petites mains, the little hands of Parisian ateliers, who consider high quality, expensive textiles and extreme attention to detail as their priority. This long and exhausting definition of haute couture applies to all houses who have their exclusive lines working hard to satisfy their high-end customers; Vetements certainly doesn’t match this crowd.

When Demna Gvasalia‘s off-beat label appeared on the calendar of haute couture week in Paris, no one was sure what’s coming. At the beginning of this year, Vetements declared the change of their fashion show schedule, making it more “realistic” for them, and their customers; also, the brand, which is on everybody’s lips, decided to show womenswear and menswear in one show, just like few other brands lately. So, what did really happen during Vetements’ show, in the middle of Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad glamorama?

Vetements is known for eerie venues, but Galerie Lafayette can be named as one of the most surreal choices up to date. The runway was located along the aisles of cosmetics, perfumes and sales, letting other brands’ logos interact with the fashion collectives’ ready-to-wear. But the meaning of “collaboration” reached further than that – it was a collection made entirely with other brands, including Juicy Couture, Brioni, Schott, Levi’s, Comme des Garçons Shirt, Reebok, Canada Goose, Dr. Martens, Alpha Industries, Eastpak, Lucchesse, Mackintosh and even Manolo Blahnik. An extraordinary company equals an explosive effect. Moreover, brands listed above benefitted from this occasion – Juicy Couture’s velour track suits suddenly became ironically “cool” again, while Manolo was willing to go all the way with exaggerating his duchess satin stilettos. “We’ve done thigh-high, so we asked, could you go waist-high this time for us?” Demna said backstage with excitement. Brioni, Italian tailoring brand for men, which is currently revamped under Justin O’Shea’s wings, let Vetements elongate and recut their classical blazers; Eastpak, every travellers’ favourite producer of backpacks, contributed to creation of the first, Vetements clutch.

“We thought we’d go straight to the brands who make all these things best, and ask to do something in our way with each one,” Gvasalia said. “The people who work at Vetements don’t really wear designer fashion—a lot of these are the labels they wear all the time.” The collection, in overall, is pure Vetements, even though the denim is by Levi’s and boots are from Texas’ cult Lucchesse. Styling is raw, while all beauty cannons are thrown away to the trash, looking at the models. If you’re desperate to seek the most couture-ish part of the collection, then it’s Juicy Couture’s velvet eveningwear – sleek, hooded dresses with zircon embellishments are sexy and somewhat… huh, elegant. However, a “home-made” product at Vetements for SS17 is the granny-style floral dress (worn by Lotta Volkova, brand’s friend). ‘Antwerpen’ t-shirts and sweatshirts are back, too.

Calling this collection as “revolutionary” might sound like a cliché… but definitely it defines the new term: haute-collab.

Men’s – Pope and Cristobal. Balenciaga SS17

June 23, 2016 | Design & Culture by Ed

Demna Gvasalia‘s appointment at Balenciaga is groundbreaking from the very first collection for women’s autumn-winter 2016, which we all experienced at the beginning of March. New silhouettes, new youthful concept, the underground, Vetements attitude already storms the editorials and modifies the way we see fashion in 2016 – but nobody expected that the biggest shock would have come within Gvasalia’s first men’s collection for the house.

Firstly, it’s not just another menswear collection. It’s the first runway collection by Balenciaga which presents menswear; secondly, it was a tribute to Cristobal Balenciaga, his life and his creative legacy. In his first months at the brand, Demna was a tourist in Balenciaga historical archives, and one specific piece became the main reference for the entire, spring-summer 2017 collection. A coat. Or rather, the coat, which was Cristobal’s own, made by his own hand. In fact, he never finished it. And surely, he would be surprised to hear that after many decades, his Georgian successor is about to make his forgotten coat an object of desire. The first look defined the silhouette of this particular coat – tailored, yet strongly exaggerated in the shoulders. And a fitting card put in breast pocket (an unexpected, small gesture which nodded to the past of bespoke, couture tailoring for men). A fitting card used to hold the information of old clients’ measurements – and dimension is something that’s absolutely revisited by Gvasalia. While the coats were colossal in volume, extremely slim suit pants were cut on the knee, distorting any proportions left. The look got even more peculiar with python leather shoes or orthopaedic white boots. That was the “formal” part of the collection, if you can say that Uncle Fester’s look will fit your business lunch.

The mid-looks of the collection were more about Vetements, I would say, with varsity jackets (of course, the shoulder were big, too) and baseball caps. The over-sized pants were styled with ribbed knits, and one of the all-black outfits felt like Gvasalia’s friends (Lotta Volkova and Paul Hameline) choice for a stroll to the market, with a huge, bold yellow “shopping” tote. Parisian cool with post-Soviet vibe. Yes.

Demna Gvasalia’s take on Balenciaga is profound, taking under consideration all aspects that were important for Cristobal. For women’s autumn, the creative director delivered flamenco dresses in florals, mentioning Balenciaga’s Spanish origins. This instantly brings on the idea of Catholicism, which was moved this season for the boys. Cristobal was a passionate Catholic, and it was his everyday habit to go to a church on Avenue George V, a stone throw from his atelier. That’s why the last looks were ornamented with Vatican lace, liturgical red and purple silks. As for a menswear debut, Gvasalia nailed it, even though one could be skeptical whether the up-to-now male clients of Balenciaga, used to basic white shirts and sneakers, will devote themselves to this new style religion.

Résumé. Balenciaga Pre-Fall’16

May 24, 2016 | Design & Culture by Ed

Balenciaga is another label which postpones its pre-collection release, taking Céline‘s and The Row‘s path. Moreover, there’s another reason why this pre-fall 2016 collection is a major highlight for the house. In fact, it was designed between the abrupt period of Alexander Wang’s departure from the maison, and styled during the first days of Demna Gvasalia‘s appearance. The press release informs that the collection wasn’t fully supervised by Demna, so the autumn-winter 2016 can be called his official debut – however, there are distinct twists coming from Balenciaga’s design studio, which will be surely approved by all Vetements fans. From over-sized hoodies to floral dresses, some of the looks could be easily understood as even pricier pieces coming straight from Vetements’ showroom. The next, much more sophisticated, all-black looks worn by Stella Tennant and Julia Nobis aren’t that simple, though, focusing on Cristobal Balenciaga’s famous body-sculpture play. The collection quietly nods to Nicolas Ghesquiere’s era, with this must-have aviator jacket with a shearling collar. Not surprisingly, Alexander Wang’s three-or-so year-long “legacy” is erased utterly, and hopefully, it will never come back.

The idea of photographing the models in a Balenciaga archive warehouse is brilliant, and it shapes an image of a brand, which wisely balances the past and the future. The very commercial, fur stoles with huge BALENCIAGA written all over them will sell immediately, I guess, just like Gvasalia’s vision for the house. Not that this collection is a masterpiece. But still, it builds strong foundation for Demna, makes a résumé of the past, and eventually, might become the season’s best-seller.