Proenza Schouler pre-opened New York Fashion Week. This was a smart move: the spring-summer 2025 collection would have a really hard time fighting for attention in the midst of all other shows and presentations that are coming up in New York this week. Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough don’t play around with gimmicks, and they are in a continuous process of stripping down anything superfluous about their brand. But the problem is the minimalism they are pursuing for spring feels so generic and safe it could easily be a COS or Arket runway. The clothes looked good – especially the over-sized shirt-dresses and slouchy tailoring – but they were bare of feelings a high fashion brand like PS should spark. Also, I’m not sure who the Proenza Schouler woman is, especially when she’s wearing all these 2015-ish stripes and fringes.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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What I love about Rosie Assoulin is the fact she doesn’t follow trends and always does her own, distinct, joyful thing at her namesake brand. There’s just so much radiance and optimism in her clothes, and they also please with their day-to-night versatility. Her resort 2025 offering is “light and unserious, but with real construction, and subtle fabrics,” she said. “We are trying to still appeal to our luxury tastes, but with a more approachable, lighthearted feeling.” That ethos is encapsulated in the tangerine, floral-print column “Banana” dress affixed with two padded crescents at the neckline and hanging off the shoulder. Or in the entrance-making flamenco-inspired number with a vibrantly ruffled hem. It’s intriguing how Assoulin effortlessly matches (and clashes) gingham checks in canary-yellow and turquoise with florals in contrasting colours; not many designers would pull it off so gracefully. No wonder why: the New York-based designer is a colorist of the ranks of Dries Van Noten and Alber Elbaz. Her unique approach to garment-construction is phenomenally reflected in the beige, ruffled midi-skirt that opens the collection and in the same-colour peplum top with striped cuffs and collar; its hourglass shape resembles vintage jugs and vases that have a cameo throughout the lookbook. And this takes us to the theme of home that often inspires Rosie in her work. “The home is a very interesting place for me. Domestic life feels very rich: what are the things we’re surrounding ourselves with, wanting to surround ourselves with? It feels like a philosophy for us“, she summed up.
Garden parties and summer occasions ahead, I’ve got you covered with some amazing pieces by Rosie Assoulin you can shop now!
Collage by me featuring Bevza AW24 look and works by Maria Prymachenko – Ukrainian folk art painter, who worked in the naïve art style. The Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum, where several works by Prymachenko were held, was burned after a deliberate attack on a museum during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the reported loss of 25 of her works.
It’s over two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, so for her autumn-winter 2024 collection, SvitlanaBevza – formerly Kyiv-based designer – set out to celebrate her motherland’s vibrant culture and history through distinct, soft-minimalist lens. Bevza selected the Ukrainian Institute of America – which specializes in promoting the art, music and culture of Ukraine – for her New York Fashion Week presentation. The collection was centered around Ukraine’s role as one of the world’s largest grain producers. Apron dresses were crafted from eco-leather and outerwear was made from sheepskin; it largely focused on an A-shaped silhouette inspired by a traditional 19th-century Ukrainian coat called a Kozhukh. The Tisto vest – named after the Ukrainian word for dough – sported plaits that echoed the texture of traditional Kosa bread. As for the palette? It was muted with the occasional pop of canary and gold coming through to mirror the lush colors of a healthy harvest. These monochromatic looks were elevated by shapes that were experimental yet considered, edited with geometric collars and belt-scrunched waists. Beautiful, functional and emotionally moving at the same time.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Thom Browne‘s autum-winter 2024 show was a compelling and theatrical NYFW send off. An ominous broken window in the centre of the runway coupled with barren trees, including a towering nine metre one swaddled in a puffer coat, set an eerie tone. As Anna Cleveland entered, clad in a tweed and a black headpiece, to the crowd’s surprise the largest tree began to move – it was a model on stilts. Suddenly, at the hem, children began to pop out, four in total. The soundtrack playing while this was all happening? Naturally Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, as narrated by Carrie Coon. The magnificent Kristen McMenamy was next to hit the runway, clad in a coat covered in ravens and gravity-defying braids. Twisted and dark, the subsequent parade of looks highlight what Browne does best, take preppy, classic standards like tweeds and tailoring and transform them into works of art with a perverse, sinister allure. A trenchcoat gets the bondage treatment, courtesy of rows of straps that line the back while a resin dipped jacket resembles a black ooze infecting a rainbow-hued world. Waists were cinched and blazers were exaggerated, creating both slim and bulbous silhouettes in equal fashion. Alex Consani’s finale as the mantis meant gold gilded braids turned into antennae as well as a face full of foil, complete with matching lashes. At its heart The Raven is a tale of distraught love and the madness that entails from it. Browne managed to convey all these feeling in this stunning fashion-show-slash-performance.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Raul Lopez’ Luar shows have become highlights, just as Marc Jacobs’ or Raf Simons’ Calvin Klein shows were back in New York Fashion Week’s history. Autumn-winter 2024 is one of those definitely, not only because Beyoncé was in attendance. This collection was a witty play around the clichéd term “metrosexual” (the last time I’ve heard it in a serious conversion was in 2012, and I live in Poland where such topics always arrive delayed). According to a dictionary definition, he’s a “single young man living in a metropolis in close proximity to the best gyms, shops, and social spaces, with a vast disposable income spent mostly on himself”. A metrosexual is a “well-manicured man whose sexuality is often immaterial – though he’s presumably heterosexual – who is well groomed, well-mannered, and has good style”.
“They’re back, and it comes in cycles,” said Lopez, pointing at images of Elizabethan and Victorian era men in brocades, makeup, and wigs, as well as men in the late ’70s with tight knits and blow-dried hair. “There are different generations of the metrosexual, and now we are in the era of the stray (straight gay),” the designer concluded. The collection in itself was an anthology of the metrosexual from the perspective of a queer man. This season, Luar clothes can be really flamboyant, but can also turn very masc at the same time. This dichotomy was on display on the runway as Lopez offered opulent zebra devoré prints in shirting (a riff on Tom Ford, an iconic metrosexual), glossy leather tailoring in the designer’s signature hefty proportions, and his recurrent hulking shoulder treatment on everything from cardigans to denim jackets. There were tight jeans paired with tighter tees (the uniform of the Dominican metrosexual, he said) that highlighted the models’ builds. A run of extra large jackets with the aforementioned bold shoulders and rounded sleeves, Lopez’s play on Elizabethan male attire, dwindled the body. The one-two punch provided by the Luar designer was the combination of a knockout collection paired with thought-provoking hypotheses about our culture. Forget the “strays,” metros, queers, straights, and everything in between. This fashion week, he christened the “Luarsexual,” and by asking the right questions about American culture and welcoming one of its biggest icons into his space, Lopez himself cemented his place as a key figure in American fashion today.
Here are couple of Luar classics you can shop right now!
Design & Culture by Ed 