Men’s – Natural Allure. Brioni SS23

August 19, 2022August 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Norbert Stumpfl came across a mid-’50s newspaper with pictures of Brioni’s collections of that time: “They looked incredibly modern,” he said during his spring-summer 2023 presentation. ”They made tailored jackets out of jersey, trousers in leather, traditional masculine suits were made with sumptuous women’s evening wear fabrics.” This spirit of modernity is what he wanted to propose in the spring collection, presented in the verdant private cloisters in one of the hidden locations Milan is famous for. Expanding on the idea of individuality, Stumpfl offered an anecdote: “One of our young clients choose a pale pink suit to propose in,” he said. “It made me so happy, it felt so nice, and it was proof that Brioni is the go-to label to celebrate the most special and intimate moments.” The sentimental gesture of the young customer inspired him to draw the line: for spring, he said, “no business, no ties, but supple, formally informal tailoring for young men.” Playing on subtle contrasts, pajama suits were made in silk knitwear; blousons in matte crocodile felt as malleable as jumpers; a shirt’s fabrication, light as air, was used for an equally weightless unlined soft tailored suit. Reprising the house’s tradition of using women’s fabrications for menswear, a trench coat was made in satin de cuir, a heavenly smooth, sumptuous fabrics with a discreet, inconspicuous shine. Stretching the remarkable skills of Brioni’s tailors and artisans, a three-pieces suit was entirely made by hand as if it were a couture piece. But the jewels in the collection’s crown were the evening tuxedos, made in precious silk jacquard woven on antique looms by Setificio Leuciano, an historic artisanal company which was purveyor to the Royal Palace of Caserta. The edited women’s offer was as elegant and breezy as the men’s, with masculine silk shirts elongated to become a dress worn over soft straight pants, and ankle-grazing evening coats impeccably cut. Brioni is imbued with a quintessentially Roman mindset: lightness of spirit, a perfect eye for beauty, and the natural allure of nonchalance which comes from millennia of proximity with the world’s most stunning artifacts.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Big D Energy. Diesel Resort 2023

August 14, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

From sustainability to Julia Fox, Glenn Martens’s first 18 months at Diesel have been dedicated to aligning the 1978-founded denim disruptor with both the deeper values and shallower preoccupations of now. In this resort 2023 collection he continued that mission through a further two-pronged emphasis on the serious and the superficial, with both sides of that binary expressed via Martens’s expertly twisted aesthetic. The serious bedrock continues to be in expanding the sustainable operations of this hybrid house. A reconfigured, jersey-specific core line named Diesel Essentials will from this collection forward be made from all-organic cotton, trimmed in recycled materials, and finished with “low impact” treatments and prints. Prime examples here included a fluoro trio of ruched asymmetrical skirts worn under a hoodie, tee, and turtle. On the side, Martens expanded the recently-launched Diesel Rehab Denim capsule – made from denim off-cuts, recycled cotton, and recycled elastane – into pieces including the season’s decadently pocketed utility pants and padded jackets. He added that a for-now exclusively Italian pilot scheme to buy-back and repurpose vintage Diesel through resale or upcycling is showing promising results. This responsible practice lends Martens’s Diesel ample clear-of-conscience wiggle room to play around with the brand’s ethos, which he said is: “to have fun, enjoy life, and be successful in every situation that you are in.” Highlights for sybarites included trompe-l’oeil bumsterish cut jeans for women and men, those ornamentally utilitarian pieces, acres of (sustainable) distressed and sometimes-waterproofed denim, retro-futuristic and logo-heavy clingy metallic knit dresses, gothically scripted skintight motowear, and a surprising diversion into tailoring. With Martens at the helm, Diesel has in short order pretty much defined its new manifesto of sustainable semi-seditious sexiness.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Balance. Jil Sander Resort 2023

July 28, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

The creative dynamic Luke and Lucie Meier have brought to Jil Sander isn’t just a reflection of the two of them sharing art and life, but also an echo of the big-picture conversation about the redefinition of identities around the intersection of masculine and feminine codes. “In our designs there’s always this tension between the masculine and the feminine,” they mused in their studio in Milan. “It’s always there in some form or another.” The husband and wife pair complement each other with the same easy flair that they give their experiments between rigor and plasticity, severity and fluidity. They describe their process as an exercise in “searching and finding that right pull, whether it’s an artisanal gesture breaking something very strict, or something soft being broken by something very rigid and structured. That play is always there.” For resort their search for a point of symmetric repose between opposites played out in what they called “deflating couture,” a turn of phrase defining sculptural, elegant volumes “collapsing” into softer, gentler, fluid shapes. Seen through this lens, their suiting consisted of sharp-cut, narrow-shouldered, and fitted jackets worn over ultra-voluminous trousers, almost like next-generation palazzo pants. The sartorial is a territory the Meiers navigate skillfully, favoring extreme precision in cutting and construction as well as a romantic feel for the handcrafted; a case in point was a sharp-structured, overcoat in a pale mauve, without lapels, fastened with a single hand-blown glass jewel button, and worn over a black tunic with a feminine ruffled collar. The play between fluidity and structure gave the collection character and appeal, and was consistent throughout. An elongated dress of voluminous couture construction was made in delicate white cotton voile, a rather humble material; straight-cut tunics and tops with plunging necklines were given a transformable twist with the addition of turtlenecks or t-shirts in contrasting colors worn underneath. The season’s version of the tuxedo had a similar versatile approach; it was proposed as a fluid combination of a pleated-bib black chemise and a pair of billowy, liquid trousers. You cannot take the sense of rigorous chic out of the Meiers.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Tinged With Sass. Blumarine Resort 2023

July 24, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Nicola Brognano slightly shifted the Blumarine look for resort 2023, “toning down the bling”. What stayed firmly in place, however, was the Y2K inspo that triggered the attention this brand has been getting lately. Sticking to your guns is always a good move if a designer wants to cut a consistent position in the fashion firmament. That’s what Brognano seems to be consistenly pursuing. The designer, who by his own admission has no affinity for talking about inspirations or references, said that he now has a tougher, less pretty image of the Blumarine woman in his mind. To summarize: her mood as of now is more street than saucy, more femme than Lolita. No surprise though that Brognano’s take on streetwear is tinged with sass. New additions to the Blumarine wardrobe were sexy ribbed tank tops with a refreshed goth logo; cool ultra-cropped sweats with hoodies layered liberally over or under those tank tops; oversized poplin shirts turned into outrageously-mini ruffled dresses; and various iterations of the multi-pocketed cargo pants that have become one of Blumarine’s signatures. They were proposed in liquid satin in a bright shade of turquoise, worn with a matching belted duster, and a barely-there bra showing vast expanses of bare midriff, while in their newest version they came printed with a camo motif that was actually a trompe l’oeil rose. Amping up the collection’s more urban, utilitarian vibe, the ubiquitous cargos morphed into motorcycle pants in pale denim-colored distressed leather, or were worn under maxi crocheted cardis and long slouchy chiffon slipdresses. Brognano offered proof of a versatile approach, and that he has enough nerve to play with Blumarine’s range with confidence.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – What’s Modern? JW Anderson SS23

June 21, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Jonathan Anderson is nailing it again, being in his surreal element. Back before Anderson started producing his in-your-face de-gendered mood-driven menswear in 2008 – the “shared wardrobe” concept that ironically led to him being practically frogmarched by his fans into expanding into in-your-face de-gendered mood-driven womenswear a few years later – he had plans to be an actor. That plan changed during an audition for Juillard in New York, where he performed a piece from the in-your-face ’90s play The Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley. Nearly a decade later The Pitchfork Disney, which he recently reread, was revived by Anderson as a central element in this first live Milan bow. Anderson said afterwards he’d been moved by “the shock of theater” that the play represented (some of the audience at its premiere in 1991 fainted) 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 intrinsic ephemerality of modernity, and its inevitable descent into anachronism. Anderson tried to add “eating canned goods” to this category of faded fads while speaking to the Italian press, but these pieces seemed more like witty acts of wearable assemblage. There was certainly a cheekiness to the project. The embedded bar codes made consumption provocatively both the ends and the means of engagement. “Fashion is a very modern device,” he said. “But it is not a modern act.” To underline the illusion of modernity he cast Rembrandt as the protagonist in his fashion play via intarsia reproductions on knitwear and prints on sneakers featuring the artist’s leery etching, Self-portrait in a Cap, Wide-eyed and Open-mouthed, from 1630. The nearly 400 year-old selfie stressed that while technology upgrades, the way in which we use it stays pretty constant. All these devices – along with industrial gloves, a stock photo of an apple-eating kid, and hardware-store door hinges – were placed within or adjacent to borderline generic contemporary canons of clothing. This created a have your cake and eat it result: you could wear JW Anderson-issued versions of 2023 uniform, and through those in-your-face interventions included within them simultaneously signal that you understood the narrative was entirely contingent – just a wearable moment in time.