Contemporary. Helmut Lang Pre-Fall 2024

December 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Peter Do’s second collection – pre-fall 2024 – for Helmut Lang proves that the designer might be really the right match for the brand. Helmut Lang, the label, has been struggling for years with finding it’s tune. No wonder why: it’s difficult to position a contemporary brand without its namesake founder at helm. Just look at what’s going on at Ann Demeulemeester. Do, however, always seemed to have a similar aesthetical sensitivity to Lang, and while his debut collection last September was bumpy, the newest collection offers a more developed glimpse at his vision for the New York-based brand. You can easily see these slinky, less-is-more clothes hanging on racks in stores and imagine customers being attracted to their essential cool. You can also see @brendahashtag wearing every single look. Worth mentioning are the paint-splattered pieces, an OG Helmut Lang specialty, all done by hand by an artist from LA. And the raw denim is cut with adaptable flap pockets, versatility being one of Do’s signatures. The tailoring, meanwhile, is made with an attention to detail that seems rare at these price points – see the inner waistband of the trousers for proof. Excess straps and oversize proportions might seem like too much at the first sight, but all the zippers you see have a function: the sleeves come off a leather biker jacket, and pants zip into shorts or go from straight-leg to flared. A two-in-one bomber puffer in black with white accents was another standout.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Go With The Flow. Maryam Nassir Zadeh SS24

November 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“Spontaneous” is a word that well describes Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s design practice. The spring-summer 2024 „Rush” lookbook is a result – not by choice, but by circumstance – of total spontaneity, as it was styled and documented during one afternoon in Paris. „The exhilarating exercise was taken as an activity of being in the moment surrendering to circumstance and making the most an afternoon with people you love around a medium you love, clothing”, said the New York-based designer of the go-with-the-flow process. Following your guts and instincts is the best possible advice anyone in fashion should take close to heart, and while sadly not many follow it, Nassir Zadeh proves that its utterly true. The collection, paired down in fabrics and styles, is a sincere return to the designer’s core and past styles, as well as a reiteration of her favorite summer clothes. But there were also novelties that will be enjoyed by the brand’s loyal fanbase. One of the heroes of this lineup is a wrap that can be worn as a skirt or a dress that was inspired by a cover-up Zadeh’s mother wore in the ’90s. It’s essentially an easy-peasy scarf-topped skirt that you self-tie. It’s vacation-ready but also has that lived-in Lower East Side cool with which Zadeh’s work has become so synonymous. “What I’ve been trying to achieve for so long is this sensibility which I look for a lot… when a garment has spirit in it and it has lightness and delicacy in the way that it’s made.” Love.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Ultra-Femininity. Mirror Palais SS24

November 17, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Marcelo Gaia’s Mirror Palais is a cult worth giving in to. Since 2019 the stylist turned designer has been whipping up sensual ready-to-wear, which has done quite well due to his keen eye for fit. For his spring-summer 2024 collection, presented during New York Fashion Week in September, the designer aimed to find a balance between fantasy and wearability, which worked well through his glam lens. Inspired by a love of vintage, the line offered a modern ode to flirty, feminine and sexy decade-spanning nostalgia with craftsmanship to match. “Definitely the late 18th century – there’s a little bit of Marie Antoinette, then a little bit of 1950s Audrey Hepburn and the 1990s supermodels. Eras when women were in their most flowering, and they’re fun,” Gaia said of the season’s inspirations. Looks spanned from flounced taffeta skirts with little tops to a strong assortment of corsetry (a cream blazer with little shorts; a polka-dotted strapless top with ‘50s capris, or laced up numbers) as well as pretty white day dresses, mushroom-like knife-pleated dresses and ‘90s bodycon bandage styles. Whether leaning into ladylike sensibility with a fluid polka-dot gown or going full femme fatale with sheer, ruffled frocks, Gaia emphasized the importance of offering styles for all body types, utilizing more stretch fabrics, adjustable waist details and a mix of sheer and lined silhouettes throughout.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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You’re Gonna Like the Way You Look, I Guarantee It. Christopher John Rogers Pre-Fall 2024

October 12, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

By the end of the fashion month circuit, Christopher John Rogers graced us with his gorgeous collection entitled “You’re Gonna Like The Way You Look, I Guarantee It“. He fulfilled the promise: these full-skirted dresses in vivacious colors and prints will make anyone feel satisfied about their look, regardless whether they are a minimalist or maximalist. This New York-based creative represents a niche of womenswear – formed by such designers as Rosie Assoulin, Dries Van Noten, the late Alber Elbaz – which elevates the wearer through femininity that oozes with optimism, balances between dramatic and easy-to-wear, and at the same time radiates with wit and intelligence. The first nine looks from Rogers’ latest line-up, all monochromatic between cream and tan, toy with bubble hems, careful tucking, tailoring and bustier bodices. Silhouettes vary, but maintain a powerful elegance, in @londongirlinnyc manner. Materials range from Japanese nylon, Italian lurex jacquard, silk taffeta and cotton poplin. It’s a very rich-in-layers, wholesome collection. Rogers also proudly brought back his signature motifs, flaunting his knack for color combination via a motley of “cassette stripes” in grass green, deep brown, soft yellow and baby pink. Layered ruffles on a peplum blouse each took on their own shade of flamingo. Prints of circles debuted alongside imagery of a red rose. By the final look, he reverted to monochrome, in an ebony gown, putting the spotlight back on “make and process – that’s what I love most about what I do,” he said.

Time For Fun. Batsheva SS24

September 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Batsheva Hay is in her daring, experimental era: for the past few seasons she has been pushing against the limits that delineate what her brand can be. “I have no classical fashion background, so I learned with cut-and-sew garments, and it was all handed off,” she explained. “I used to feel like I couldn’t work with the garments. I had to hand things over, then pick them up, and it was very nice for my lifestyle. Then I’d go home and nurse my baby and then hand her off, pick the clothes up, pick out the buttons or whatever.” She laughed at the familiar juggling of so many women who go home at the end of a workday for a different kind of work. “But now I find the really fun part is tearing things, shredding things, adding little bustles, pinning things onto things. And I do think that’s an important part of what distinguishes my brand from other brands; that there’s a little bit of naivete in it. It’s not quite feral, but just the amateurness of it all.” For sping-summer 2024, Batsheva went The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with all the 1950s volumes and colours, but also in the sense of humor. These “grotesque experiments,” as Hay calls them, involved her pinning a surplus of cotton placemats and oven mitts that she had lying around. “I just started safety-pinning them on my body, and I thought, Oh, it’s so sexy,” While the oven-mitt dress feels very much like oven mitts that have been safety-pinned together when you’re just “being goofy,” the experimentation did take her to some groovy places. Like the dress made from delicately embroidered cotton placemats, which has a sort of romantic quality to it, and the top made from floral-print cotton placemats, which Hay draped over a white cotton “cheerleader full-circle skirt” with turquoise godets further propped up by a hoop skirt underneath. If it all sounds a little nutty, it is, but it also feels wearable and oddly accessible. Hay expanded, elongated, or otherwise stuffed some of her go-to silhouettes, like the turquoise dress modeled by Amy Fine Collins, which is one of her bestsellers, and the high-waist, pleated skirt in turquoise with embroidered kissy prints, which she makes every season in different fabrications. The designer was also having fun at her presentation inside the BondST restaurant at Hudson Yards, where models holding little number signs walked around guests, midcentury couture show style, while Hay narrated the looks and then opened the floor for questions and comments from the audience.