Matrix

Staged in a former Condé Nast office, filled with corporate cubicle walls, Alexander Wang‘s autumn-winter 2018 fashion show’s venue promised a lot. Glass-ceiling breaking! Female empowerment! Strong, business dressing! All that came to my mind instantly. But did the designer deliver anything worthwhile? Except the Matrix reference and lots of black, nothing else, honestly. It’s hard to imagine a working woman wear any of those dominatrix mini-dresses and leather skirts with slits in the most NSFW spots. Not that sexy is bad. I’m not trying to sound puritan! But I just don’t think this theme really works for Wang, and his ‘party girl’ roots. If it was just another Wang-ish collection, it would at least feel persuasive. He tried to do something mature, maybe. Sadly, the result is a mash-up of current Saint Laurent, vintage Mugler and Gucci-era Tom Ford, in wrong context. Fingers crossed that the trip to Paris next season will be slightly more succesful for the designer…

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

New 8 p.m. time slot, new Palais de Tokyo location, and a state-of-the-art glass and grid-work runway under which dry ice machines pumped smoke. And the new mood appears: matrix and sci-fi. Narrow glasses, long, dark power coats, mesh and cosmic embroideries. At a glance, it was tempting to see signs of Wang’s early work in New York—the way he blended sport and the street. But that’s only part of the story. Wang was in Paris this summer during the Tour de France, and it was the world of cycling—the competitors’ second-skin kits, the shoes that clamp into pedals—that influenced the built-for-speed feeling of this collection. Silhouettes were lean and athletic: the pants leggings-tight, shirts clingy, and dresses cut like a glove. As you might know, from the beginning of Wang’s career at Balenciaga, I didn’t really feel “him” here. But this is the first collection (since AW13) which I pretty much enjoyed. And those lilac elements are simply too good to be true.