Acts of Light. Colleen Allen AW24

February 9, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

If there’s one debut collection that you’ve got to see this New York Fashion Week, then it’s Colleen Allen‘s autumn-winter 2024 line-up. A former Vogue assistant who cut her teeth at Raf Simons’s Calvin Klein and The Row, Allen can be hardly called an emerging designer with such impressive portfolio. Her first collection proves she’s got a certain design-maturity that many, many names in New York are still having a hard time in finding. Kept in a vibrant color palette of deep red and cardinal purple, Allen offers a wardrobe filled with body-wrapping knits and jerseys. The draped, flowing dress makes you think of Halston’s 1980s costumes for modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, particularly the ones created for the “Acts of Light” performances. The velvet-y, floor-sweeping, red opera coat makes the collection turn an even more theatrical direction, but not overly, we’re still grounded in reality. You can definitely picture the entire offering in IRL circumstances, especially the wonderfully tailored blazers, poet vests, and multi-layered tops. With confidence, Colleen Allen brings much-needed spirit to New York’s league of minimalism.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Marc’s Swans. Marc Jacobs SS24

February 3, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Although Marc Jacobs presented his latest collection off-schedule, a couple of days before NYFW officially starts, yesterday’s line-up brought hope and optimism to the city’s state of the industry. Jacobs celebrates 40 years (!) of his brand, but the spring-summer 2024 line-up doesn’t read us a retrospective, but rather an exuberant, lively love letter to fashion. Walking tall, strong and gracious, like swans (both, the Central Park ones and the Truman Capote ones), in bouffant wigs, the models and the entire doll-house scene (featuring XXL table and chairs by artist Robert Therrien) felt like some sort of twisted fairy-tale. The collection itself was an exercise in exaggerated proportions. Knit sweaters abruptly cinched at the waist; floor-length mirrored ballgowns – those could definitely be worn by modern-day C.Z. Guests and Babe Paleys; supersized Venetia bags (the 2000s Marc Jacobs best-seller is back, better than ever); fluffy-looking tailoring. This is for the dollllllls! The designer sneaked a couple of references to his finest work (and a couple of Louis Vuitton nods are also here), but he also combined his design language with his subtle signifiers of his ultimate fashion heroes: Martin Margiela, Rei Kawakubo, Miuccia Prada. Jacobs never feared to admit he’s a fashion fan. To the tune of Philip Glass, the show ended dramatically as it started, with the doll-models walking out of open door at the end of the runway into the street. There was no finale – and we got a two-second glimpse of Jacobs before the vast space of Park Avenue Armory plunged into darkness. Here’s to next decades and decades of F-A-S-H-I-O-N!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Recreation. Bode AW24

January 14, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-winer 2024, Emily Adams Bode Aujla explores the evolution of athletic wear and character-building through the lens of American institutional sport and competition. The charming, vintage-y collection confirms once again that Bode could potentially head to Ralph Lauren in the future and be a stately successor of the all-American style. This season, the designer reimagines leisure and athletic apparel from the 1770s-1970s, and muses on sports and recreation being vital to our understanding of virtue, community, and history. Fantastic lace pieces were appliquéd with figures playing sports. There were colorful lurex sweaters decorated with field hockey sticks, knitted cardigans with intarsia basketball players, and a particularly elegant white silk jacquard with a tonal football print. The inspiration also manifested itself in more practical ways; like the handsome dark gray three piece suit; the waterproof, super-light zip jacket and matching pants decorated with patches; or the simple, unlined wool jacket inspired by the kind that football players wear to stay warm on the bench. Elsewhere even simple knit sweaters and t-shirts inspired by the design of hockey or football jerseys proved just as special.

Autumn 2024 also marks the third outing for Bode Aujla’s dedicated womenswear collection, and it’s worth noting that it’s developing into something pretty remarkable. Between the beaded 1920s slip dresses, the lavishly embellished knits and bra tops, the 1930s-inspired bias cut chiffon dresses, and super delicate (and super sexy) silk underpinnings and matching pointelle tank tops and panties, a sense of real pleasure and indulgence permeates her women’s clothes. Lately, there’s been lots of conversations regarding the ways in which women designers approach making clothes for women; oftentimes, the focus is on the fact that they design for women’s “real lives” meaning wearable, meaning comfortable, meaning suited for a wide range of bodies. Beyond all this, Bode Aujla is also tapping into women’s fantasies; their desire to wear beautiful things just for themselves. If anyone happens to join in their fun, well, that’s a bonus.

And here are couple of Bode goodies that have caught my eye lately…

ED’s SELECTION

Oslo Fair Isle Intarsia Wool Cardigan

Brodie Jacquard-knit Alpaca-blend Sweater

Grenier Fringed Embroidered Silk-twill Jacket

Frog And Pony Cropped Flocked Striped Cotton-blend T-shirt

Corinthia Embroidered Silk-blend Crepe De Chine And Guipure Lace Chemise

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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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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