We Are All Showgirls. Area SS22

February 14, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

And just like that… FASHION is back at New York Fashion Week! For all the places Area has taken us, around the world and to outer space, a nightclub has strangely never been a stop along the way. It was maybe too obvious to Piotr Panszczyk – Area is a brand rooted in crystal trim and sexy cutouts. You get it; he doesn’t really need to spell it out. But wow, what a treat when he does. For its spring 2022 collection, Area finally delved into its showgirl roots, touching on the Deco glamour of Zizi Jeanmaire, the exuberant costumes of Brazil’s Carnaval, and the slouchy glitz of an off-duty Vegas dancer. “We are all showgirls,” Panszczyk said within Area’s new showroom that is completely silver, ceiling to floor, save for an entirely gilded bathroom. “And showgirls aren’t just about being pretty. It’s political; it’s about their bodies – and they are tough.” The Follies Area are oozing sparkle – crystal pants, obsessive beading in every color of the rainbow, A-R-E-A spelled out in crystal on their thongs – but the spirit is different. No more thoughtless spangle, no flippant sexiness. In a video, Connie Fleming, Janet Jumbo, Sophie Koella, Precious Lee, Lulu Tenney, and Mariana Pardinho move like Mugler-inspired Barbarellas – rigid, assertive, almost threatening in their beauty. The clothes are as diverse as the women who wear them: sweatsuits are trimmed with feathers; baggy jeans have cutouts on the thighs; and blazers are modeled on corset shapes, fastening with hook-and-eye closures. There’s no question: these are over-the-top pieces for a woman who knows what she wants.

When it comes to the couture elements of Area’s latest, props to Panszczyk for asking a question so demented it has surely never been asked before: what if Jean Arp were sexy and sparkly? Working with embroidery artisans in India, the designer built bulbous bodies out of padding and strict seaming, and had the artisans embroider them completely with beads, crystals, and sequins. Metal headpieces, tops, and jewelry were handmade by a German artist in Rome to evoke the tremble of feathers. The level of handwork is resplendent, and amid a NYFW of problem-solving clothes, it feels even more a delight to be in the presence of such unadulterated creativity. It’s also funny. Fashion can be too self-serious; Panszczyk has hit his stride with this collection and isn’t afraid to giggle about it.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Poignant. Brandon Maxwell AW22

February 14, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

I’ve never really followed Brandon Maxwell‘s work, but his autumn-winter 2022 collection seized my attention. This was Maxwell’s most personal show yet – it opened with Siri reading his Wikipedia page before cutting to a short film of spliced together family photos and video clips, many of Maxwell through the years with his grandmother, who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. The Wikipedia page reminded us that Maxwell spent much of his youth in her Longview, Texas clothing boutique. He credits his grandmother with his passion for design. “She’s a big part of my life,” he said. “I was going back to when I was a kid: While she was cooking I’d be in the back room taking blankets and wrapping them around my sister, emptying out her jewelry box, and making my sister carry one of her bags. When we decided to do a show, I wanted to make something that if it was my last one it would be a bookend that I was proud of.” The blanket shawls, antique jewelry, and clutch bags Maxwell remembers were recurring motifs here, talismans from his youth. Fabrics felt chosen to conjure a feeling of home, too, from the crushed satin of a double lapel coat, to the oversize chenille stitch of a short belted sweater dress, to the rich brown interior textiles Maxwell used for tailoring. The flowers on Karlie Kloss’s finale dress were taken from a painting he asked his grandfather to make in his grandmother’s honor. The last couple of times Maxwell was on the runway, the mood he channeled was slicker, more glamorous. The softer, more romantic tenor of these clothes was “a way to dial into a shared frequency” between himself and his grandmother, he said. This was a poignant show, a thoughtful and heartfelt goodbye to the woman who set him on his path.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Independence. Eckhaus Latta AW22

February 13, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s another anniversary this New York Fashion Week: Eckhaus Latta celebrates its first 10 years. It’s not that easy to define this brand in one word – it’s raw and elusive, sexy and gender-fluid, over-sized, and then all of the sudden super clingy and sensual, spontaneous, kind of minimal, but not really noting all the arty handwork the brand loves to add to their collections. When Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta arrived in New York in 2012, their label was immediately deemed “crafty” and “indie”. After a decade in business (the irony: many people still consider the brand as “emerging”), Eckhaus Latta is one of New York’s strongest standing independent labels, with two brick-and-mortar stores, an e-commerce business, and admirers from all over the world. Its anniversary show at the former Essex Market affirmed that after a decade of independence, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta are still charting their own course in fashion. The autumn-winter 2022 show was filled with Eckhaus Latta signatures. Sheer, glittery knits were slashed open at the back; minidresses were cut on a square edge; and tailoring was slit to reveal a spine, a thigh, or a breast. Worn by the brand’s friends and collaborators, including David Moses, Hari Nef, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Thistle Brown, and Paloma Elsesser, the collection was a summation of everything Eckhaus Latta has built. It was cool, unfussy ready-to-wear with undertones of kink, craft, and community. It still is all these things, without ever labeling itself. “We didn’t want to be nostalgic or retrospective,” said Eckhaus postshow. “But we did want to bring back the things that we loved from our early collections, the handwork especially,” added Latta. The chain-mail pieces that closed the show, graphically sliced up to be equal parts erotic and acerbic, were handmade in the brand’s atelier. It was well balanced with the label’s more affordable garments. May Eckhaus Latta’s next 10 years be about furthering the bond between its tender handwork and commercial hits.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Confident & Refined. Victor Glemaud AW22

February 13, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Victor Glemaud‘s brilliant autumn-winter 2022 outing oozed with the energetic New York chic of the Halston days – and the graceful confidence of the Halstonettes. Lately, Glemaud has been working a more minimalist groove, and this season the designer ramped up that aesthetic, stripping down and paring back his signature vibrant knits. Models sauntered into the marble paved atrium in classic stilettos, their hair tied back with chic headscarves. The collection has its key reference – Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl, a masterpiece of 1960s cinema that earned the pioneering Senegalese filmmaker international renown. Mbissine Thérèse Diop plays the young Senegalese woman who moves to France to work for a wealthy white family. Her stirring performance is amplified by a wardrobe of impeccable black and white shift dresses. Punctuated with touches of tangerine and soft beige, the collection’s mostly monochromatic palette nodded to Diop’s scene-stealing performance. Glemaud introduced a new, more pliant yarn to his brand this season, and the resulting cut and sew jersey dresses were attention grabbing and flattering on a variety of body types. The most compelling examples were cut with athletic attitude, including clingy hooded racerback maxi dresses, ruched asymmetric LBDs, and stirrup leggings. As a partner to those bodycon looks, Glemaud showed a series of fur coats, perhaps the most unexpected aspect of the collection. With so many brands going fur-free, these days it’s rare to see so much as a fur trim on the runway. Still, for Glemaud the choice made sense. “Fur has a rich history in Black culture and it’s something I don’t think we should be ashamed about,” he said backstage. “I also don’t believe we should live in fear of being canceled.” It was a lovely surprise to discover in the show notes that he had dedicated the collection to “the countless women who left their homelands for the American Dream,” including his elegantly dressed mother and her twin sister, originally from Haiti, who sat in the front row. “I wanted this collection to be a celebration of body and shape, but most of all a celebration of Black women,” said Glemaud. Easily the most powerful statement of the show was the casting of all Black dark-skinned beauties.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Tough Femininity. Elena Velez AW22

February 13, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Elena Velez held her show at the Freehand Hotel, transforming its Georgia Room, typically a bar, into a bare-bones space, accompanied by a soundtrack that began with a woman repeating “She was a disgrace to all women.” It was a cheeky way to start off a presentation whose theme celebrated women and their different forms of femininity. As for Velez’s version of femininity, it’s tough and gritty. She’s from Milwaukee, the only child of a single mother who is a ship captain. Velez stresses that she has her own unorthodox perception of womanhood, which, through her creations, has turned out to be wildly confident, a bit aggressive, and very hot. Much of her success can be credited to her great handle on the “tough femininity” dichotomy in her designs. The Parsons graduate uses fabrics that are made to last and have a military-grade toughness. Some of these materials include army canvas, Lake Michigan ship sails (a nod to her mother), and parachutes. More often than not, Velez doesn’t cover the original serial numbers on the fabric but instead keeps them in the final design, another grit-factor addition. According to the designer, the use of these materials is to show tension within womanhood. While Velez stresses toughness in her design ethos, there is no clunk in the pieces. The silhouettes are sensual and curve skimming. Corsets were a theme in the collection, sometimes deconstructed with sliced-off sections. Peasant tops, once romantic and woo-woo, were incredibly alluring, cinched at the waist with a boning motif. Even the long and loose and flowy ivory dresses, which could have been the nightgown of every bedridden Victorian woman, had sex appeal thanks to the artful way a strap hung off the shoulder or how the boning traced the body. The final image of the collection has all the essense of Velez’ vision: a striking model closed the show while carrying a cherubic baby and wearing a black dress with a sharp oval cutout stretching from the sternum to below the navel. Truly a stunning version of femininity.