Men’s – Higher Than The Sun. Dior SS24

June 24, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Kim Jones‘ first collection for Dior seems like yesterday, but believe it or not, 5 years have passed since his big debut. I wasn’t always a fan of his work at the Parisian brand, but his recent collection – and especially spring-summer 2024 – make me change my mind. For this anniversary collection, Jones turned towards a canonical trio of Dior designers who preceded him. He referenced Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré, and Marc Bohan, enmeshing motifs from their times here with propositions of his own. The membrane the connected them all was Christian Dior’s cannage, the pattern the house founder based on the woven rattan chairs in which guests sat at his first salon show in 1947. The show opened with a coup de théâtre: the wide runway was composed of polished metal gray tiles. As the first Andrew Weatherall–conjured wheezing whalesong of Primal Scream’s “Higher Than the Sun” began to roll, the entire cast of models was raised from beneath the runway in a three-wide, 17-long grid of looks.

Jones’s design credentials are undisputed. He is also an extremely accomplished visual editor. He studded polished jewels on cardigans draped over the collection’s straight-legged, high-hemmed, high skirted tailoring, and then that over piqué polo shirts set with yet more jewels. Can we talk about the knitted beanies with velvet flower brooches?! Obsessed. Tweed loafers had buckles derived from a Lady Dior fragrance motif. Marled jacquard cannage knits in punchy colors were worn shoulder robed over more of the tailoring. Some jackets, semi-safarienne, were set with a bow at the breast pocket. Long tweed coats, high notch-collared and double breasted, featured the faded rattan shape within their muesli flecks and appeared to be bonded dresses worn from the shoulder. Dior’s Mitzah Bricard–inspired leopard print was reproduced on Saddle bags and vests. These were worn with sporty tweed shorts, which were later placed against tweed and piqué twinsets. The punches of fluoro green and orange added a psychedelic touch. As the designer put it himself: “It’s a collage of different designers in the archive expressed in shape, color, form and mood.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Study of Elegance. Dries Van Noten SS24

June 23, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“We wanted to make it a study of elegance. To make it very masculine. So we asked what is masculinity now? And how we can make elegance also young, and interesting to the young?… I think streetwear is one thing, and it’s fantastic, but I also think people want more ways to dress to express who they are, and to enjoy,” said Dries Van Noten of his powerful spring-summer 2024 menswear offering. The herringbone wool in a gorgeous belted raglan shoulder coat contained zig-zags of camel and black, the two shades that set the tone for the opening phase of this collection. A stately orchestral start segued slowly then less so towards sweet repetitive beats by Soulwax. Gabardine pants fronted with trench coat skirts were foils against deep-V knits with matching wrapped skirts: modern twinsets. Slubby shantung silks, net linen knits, coated linen outerwear, knit velvets and muted optically enveloping prints provided textures both visual and tactile. The palette became dyed, sun-drenched, or even sun-burnt. To mix a bronze shirt and coat with gold sequin shorts (!), or play aubergine shorts against a mustard bomber was simultaneously unlikely and self-evidently effective. Some tops in mousseline were sheer, some sandals were strapped with fur, some hems on shorts and combat pants were frayed and raw, and the knit velvet sweater featured a grid of plucked perforations across the chest: layers of patina, wear, and form. This was a collection crying out to be moved into.

Men’s – Slender Goths. Rick Owens SS24

June 23, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

(To experience the full version of this collage, check out my Instagram!)

The super-slender silhouettes of the models walking the Rick Owens spring-summer 2024 fashion show were both ethereal and disturbing. As the designer observed from backstage, even portlier people could work the season’s elongated look: those pants sat high to create a center-point at the base of the sternum, north of the paunch. His simultaneously ancient and futuristic Italian-crafted riff on Victorian stricture, structure, and suture – those hard shoulders against the coiling soft folds of draped silk organza – contrasted with a more primitive habit: goth-phase Flintstones fare. There were high top versions of his leg-brace boots and “brutalist concrete sandals.” The parade of statuesque, elegant goths was accompanied by abrupt fireworks, detonated from towering rigs set in the Palais de Tokyo pool. The eruptions filled the space with swirls of purple and yellow smoke. The smell of cordite was in the air. Ash rained down (reportedly, one of the editors’ brand new bag got irrevocably stained). The scene seemed simultaneously apocalyptic and ecstatic. That’s how Owens feels lately. “Maybe it’s just to celebrate while we can. Is that what people are feeling?” Arguably, the designer was having his cake and eating it; yet this was mindful consumption, contradiction with a cause, fashion with a profound position.

Men’s – PharreLl’s Take. Louis Vuitton SS24

June 21, 2023June 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

In anticipation of Pharrell Williams‘ debut collection for Louis Vuitton, the actual meaning of a “fashion designer” became a big discourse on the internet. Do we even need a skilled designer when a brand like Louis Vuitton hires a big (and undoubtedly stylish) entertainment industry name instead? What we’ve seen yesterday in Paris was a show (more of a business-, than fashion-, noting the Grammy-like front row featuring everyone from Beyonce to Rihanna) in its purest sense. The Voice of Fire choir singing loud; the Pont Neuf and what seems half of Paris lit up and ready to accommodate the mega-event; the Jay-Z concert afterwards… and what about the actual clothes? There was plenty of merch, as well as true eye-candies, that’s for sure. But Pharrell seemed to approach the debut more like a styling exercise. A bit of Nigo and Kim Jones menswear sensitivity here, a couple of Wales Bonner and Bode touches here, a sprinkle of Virgil Abloh nods there. The Karl Lagerfeld-level ego was palpable as well (even a Chanel-like tweed jacket popped in one of the looks). As you might already know, the garments were heavily covered with the green pixelated Damier duds, and all sorts of LV monograms known to man. Of course, the most powerful of all were the accessories, the brand’s primary money-makers. Zingily colored Keepalls and Almas and Neverfulls and Speedys, worn in clusters. To be truly honest, the collection wasn’t neither bad… or outstandingly good. But it will definitely sell loads.

Men’s – Turning The Page. Giorgio Armani SS24

June 19, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Generally in 2023, and at the point of his career, Giorgio Armani is kind of punk. And appreciation his fashion – or rather, style – is punk, too. A blank page and a pencil: such has been the starting point of every Armani collection since 1975. Today, the Italian designer brought that moment of beginning to this collection’s moment of publication at his Milan showspace, via the pointed inclusion of an extremely large pencil at the end of his runway. Armani drafted his menswear masterpiece decades ago, but the cycle of fashion means that it is constantly subject to revisions, elisions, alterations, and edits; every season sees a new layer placed over the one before. The spring-summer 2024 one contained a direct reference to his very first menswear collection in the close up print of raffia weave used in roomy blousons, pants, and bags, but that archival gesture was not the point. “The collection surely recalls the past, without making it all about the past,” he said afterwards. The long, almost shirtlike cut of the light jackets had the same fluid elan of those famous pieces worn by Richard Gere so many years ago. And the four suits that closed this otherwise very holiday collection contained some silhouettes that any long-in-the-tooth Hollywood rep will fondly recall from his glory days. However you could just as easily conjure the image of this collection being worn by a new generation, in a new context, with stories of their own to tell.