Men’s – A Lesson In Proportions. Hed Mayner AW24

January 21, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

I started watching the new “Cristóbal Balenciaga” series yesterday, and one thing stuck in my mind. When Balenciaga had a hard time finding his design language in Paris, he realized that a designer’s signature cut and style should be that accentuated and sharp, that it should be distinct for the viewer even through squinted eyes. I have an impression that Hed Mayner is one of the few contemporary designers who have reached that level of distinction in their work. To that extent that you see his XXL volumes copied all over the Parisian runways.

Mayner’s idea behind the autumn-winter 2024 collection was to make clothes that look like there had already been a body inside them, as if the wearer were donning someone else’s proportions. “I wanted to have it be like 3D without cutting too much,” he said, noting that he tries not to work around themes and mood boards. “There’s no reference or history or culture, there’s the thing itself, and you work inside,” he said. A gray four-way stretch fabric was printed with pinstripes to look like suiting, but actually takes on “a human form” when cut into an overcoat or trousers. “It lets me wear tailoring without feeling that I belong to a certain group or have a certain status in society,” the designer observed. True to form, trousers skewed ample and fluid. For shirting, Mayner found himself studying vintage Brooks Brothers styles. “I’m obsessed with diving into something, changing it completely, but keeping it as it is,” he said. One result was an almost crunchy striped shirt in a bonded cotton-aluminum fabric that holds its wrinkles artily. That one may resonate with loyalists, but in a seriously strong coat season Mayner showed that he can hold his own.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – In The Artist’s Studio. Yohji Yamamoto AW24

January 20, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Yohji Yamamoto is designer with an endless fascination for artists – the individualism, the impulses, and the archetypes. From the loosely knotted poets’ blouse and a coat with peaked shoulders, to the sumptuous attire in velvet and brocade, this was a collection for that certain “genius working in the studio” person. Uniform of loose jackets and utility vests; shirts covered in vivid brushwork tucked into suspendered trousers. Dressed in these ensembles were some of his longtime artist collaborators – Wim Wenders and Max Vadukul – along with Warren Ellis, Norman Reedus, and the dancer Brandon Miel Masele. And while they appeared like distinctive personages, they also conjured some essence of the designer himself. For one of his two strolls down the runway, Vadakul donned a coat with “old bohemian” along the back. Would men consider this a badge of pride, a way of confronting reality with a smirk? “We’re older but that’s the only thing that changes,” the photographer acknowledged backstage. “What we create is still the same.” The show closed with Wenders in trousers printed with his name. Yamamoto and the filmmaker worked together in 1989 when the director made Notebook, a documentary about cities and clothes. Yamamoto noted how they were both children born in the aftermath of war-torn cities and have alchemized that darkness into work that has a poetic resonance. If the collection unleashed ideas with a sort of feisty enthusiasm, the pace was calm, and the mood was poignant.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Unexpected Elegance. Dries Van Noten AW24

January 19, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Dries Van Noten proves that the ultimate recipe for timeless, yet unexpected elegance consists of the following: classic, slightly over-sized clothes that you can make the most of styling-wise, a little play with textures, and a color palette consisting of black and a couple of surprises. “An elegant look for young guys, but combining things sometimes in a rather strange way,” is how the beloved Belgian designer described his intention backstage. There were oddities, mostly in the aforementioned styling: the way chunky ribbed-knit sweaters with an arching side zip were half worn: one sleeve filled, the other wound around the neck like a scarf. Ribbed knit details recurred as wide cuffs on all manner of coats. Denim shirts were bunched up and caught with big safety pins – a punk touch – and a camel polo shirt stretched to the fingertips. Striking but never jarring, Van Noten’s knack for combining colors and prints, and matching trouser volumes to a diverse array of tailored toppers, warrants closer study for anyone interested in pursuing great style.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – The Beauty of Resistance. Rick Owens AW24

January 19, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

When Rick Owens speaks, you better listen. The designer’s autumn-winter 2024 fashion show, entitled “Porterville“, wasn’t only a visually mind-blowing experience and wholesome food for thought, but an act of resistance.

The starting point of this brilliant collection was the tedious circumstance of transiting through airport retail. “We are herded through that gauntlet of a very specific beauty and aspiration: of a certain kind of sexuality, a certain kind of face shape, a certain kind of body shape – and it’s unattainable.” For Owens, this experience sums up contemporary mass luxury and what he observes as an intolerance of difference that is the result of its function to sell a dream of sameness – a homogenized standard. “I call that standard ‘airport beauty.’ And I oppose it. And when I wear my platform boots as I go through the airport it is to oppose airport beauty. This is my resistance.” Subverting enforced conformity – that’s actual beauty.

For this very personal show, Owens opened his house in Paris, instead presenting the collection at the Palais De Tokyo courtyard. “That standard is dishonest… but this is a fully resolved Rick Owens experience. It can’t get any more honest or authentic than this. And that was my basic urge this season: to be sincere.” He added: “I’m trying to participate in and contribute to all alternative beauties: to bombastic beauty, sometimes, but also kind and soft beauty.” And what is “Porterville” about? The show’s name is after the California town in which Owens was raised. “Bleak,” is how he describes it. “I remember it for its intolerance – although the intolerance I experienced was mild, obviously, compared to any intolerance that we’re seeing today.” By contrast this house – which Michele Lamy secured when she and Owens moved to Paris just over two decades ago – is a sanctuary. “I want to be a haven. A force of anti-intolerance.” The clothes reflected all that. The designer honored creative collectivism by inviting multiple collaborators to share his platform. The fantastically insectoid inflatable rubber boots that puckered and popped as the models walked in them were by London based designer Straytukay. Owens said he saw another Londoner, Leo Prothman, posting his take on Rick’s signature Kiss boots and asked him to add them to today’s collection. Challenging to manufacture but fantastic to watch were the jackets and pants made by rubber couturier Matisse Di Maggio. The family of Owens models were this time joined by the Russian trans artist (and exile) Gena Marvin.

The collection was also a retrospective look at some of Owens’ all-time classics, now magnified, even more elongated and subverted. The almost ecclesiastically spiked shoulders of his duvet jackets, the airbag embrace of his balled body wrappings, and the beastly toughness of his fluffed jumpsuits and capes both projected and protected character. The leather perfecto, in hands of Rick, is an entire cathedral architecture.

This is a fashion moment that reminds you, during the endless fashion month cycle, that it’s all worth it.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Masterclass. Wales Bonner AW24

January 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

This Paris Fashion Week, there are brands that scream and shout into the void. But there are also brands like Wales Bonner that focus on quiet gestures with grand impacts. The autumn-winter 2024 collection, titled “Dream Study“, was the result of Grace Wales Bonner‘s time spent in Howard University’s Moorland-Springarn Research Centre, imbuing a contemporary collegiate wardrobe with nostalgic sentiment for its illustrious alumni. What really caught her interest in the storied Black university’s archives, though, were the yearbooks. “Particularly the ones from the 1990s,” she explained. “Every year they have a homecoming, with performances of different hip-hop artists coming to celebrate. So it was kind of both exploring the history of the place, but also this kind of musical intersection that’s always been something important to me. So I was thinking about conscious and cosmic hip-hop. How it kind of takes on the mantle of intellectual thinking, and kind of takes it further.” Models (Tyler Mitchell and Imaan Hammam among them) wore academic staples, beautifully adorned, as well as relaxed cashmere knitwear, tailoring trimmed with crocheted Indian mirror-work, while outwear pieces were crafted from vintage kantha quilts. Note the feather brooches which were dotted with pearls, lapiz lazuli and amethyst beads. It’s fascinating to watch how Wales Bonner does this: teaching, foregrounding academic literary references (with every show, there’s a reading list), creating delightful, never-overworked collection (just over 30 looks), and building long-term collaborations with entities as far apart in fashion as adidas and Anderson and Sheppard of Savile Row.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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