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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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.

Hustling. Luar SS24

September 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

For a couple of seasons now, Luar is the finale New York Fashion Week show. It’s a good ending, one that leaves an impression of hope for the city’s contemporary fashion. This was Raul Lopez’s most streamlined and mature collection to date. The butter yellow boxy jacket that opened the show had rows of fully functional rouleau buttons that wrapped around the arms and could be unbuttoned to form a short sleeve jacket. It was worn with a matching pair of shorts that could be unbuttoned to become a panty, and white sheer hose – a mainstay of a certain church look for Caribbean women – and golden sandals. This opening look conveyed the rhythm of this collection, which was mostly about experiments with tailoring . A series of long tailored jackets with wide peak lapels appeared to be worn over draped skirts in the same fabric but were in fact all one piece – a fact that was only obvious as the models walked away and you noticed an elaborately draped back. It hinted at the tension Lopez was exploring – the wanting to move forward but getting pulled back by circumstances or by human temptation. Further pushing this point were the button-down shirts worn underneath the suit, in classic banker stripes, which featured an extra long collar that stood out against the neck – mirroring the motion of actually being pulled back by the neck. Other standouts included the separates made from “crackle vinyl,” meant to mimic the cement floors that are typical in the houses in the Dominican Republic neighborhood where Luar had its show. It looked particularly glamorous on a shirt with that same rouleau button detail along the sleeve and the bodice, tucked into a high-waist mermaid skirt in a shade of warm cement gray, and a little subversive on a shirt in a cooler shade of gray tucked into a pleated skort and worn with a long white tie. “I think this season I was more refined with the hand embroideries, the fabrics, the suiting, the crepes… I just feel like I’m evolving into my true self,” Lopez said. “This marks the 10th year that I do an actual runway show, and I was thinking how all this hustling and bustling really paid off, because it’s such a beautiful thing to be a New Yorker and be recognized in the city. And it kind of sets the tone of having to show out when I do a show.” He paused for a second, “but who knows what next season will bring? Maybe I’ll go back to being crazy.”

Antiheroines. Elena Velez SS24

September 15, 2023September 15, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

In the sea of New York Fashion Week’s collections that deliver mediocrity mixed with business, Elena Velez is an outlier. She is here to disturb the peace. And the system. The spring-summer 2024 fashion show took place at a warehouse in Bushwick. After the finale walk, a handful of the models started a mud fight. Some guests got splattered. Velez enjoys creating such discomfort. The designer gave no interviews after the show. She wanted the spectacle to speak for itself. Instead she let her press notes do the talking. “Where are our antiheroines?” she asked, adding that the collection, titled The Longhouse, was a “ritualistic catharsis to the coddling, histrionic, and moralistic ills of oversocialization.” Maybe the mud fight was a visual representation of our online interactions, which often lack nuance and have little care for context. Velez went on to state that the show was a “creative interpretation of the reorganization of contemporary society around feminine expressions of control and behavioral modeling” and a reaction to a “climate of post-progressivism where resistance to a monolithic cultural paradigm is intensifying.” It’s hard to unpack these ideas. What was clear was Velez’s commentary on contemporary womanhood. “It feels to me like the sanitization and unilateralization of womanhood in popular culture today leaves no room for the nuance and multiplicity we deserve as architects of labyrinthine interior lives,” she wrote. In short, and in plain English, her point is that women can be good and evil, kind and angry, soft and rugged, and passive and aggressive. Velez offers them eveningwear that remains as compelling and striking as ever; a standout was an askew and elongated corset that melted onto the body with a draped skirt covered in silicone latex. But most fascinating were her commercial propositions: waffle-knit tights, zip-up bustiers, canvas jackets and shirting constructed with seams and darts inside out, layered T-shirts, and a terrific cropped bomber jacket with its bust cups slashed in half. You want to meet the woman who wears Velez’s clothes; you might fear her, but you also want to befriend her.

Forever Spring. Rosie Assoulin SS24

September 14, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Rosie Assoulin celebrates 10th anniversary of her name-sake brand this year. For that occasion, she had her “first fashion show” this New York Fashion Week, which was a joyous mise-en-scène accompanied by the euphoric sound of Vivaldi’s “Spring”. Rosie’s fashion is like forever spring: it’s always blooming, no matter the season, and feels effortless, hopeful and so joie de vivre. “Spring, in all its abundance, is a reminder that we are here to grow. In a way, it’s a memento mori, urging us to savor the fertility of the season, with the knowledge of its impermanence. As it comes in, so it goes out, and we must enjoy and celebrate in the moment,” the show notes read. Assoulin’s signature eveningwear – never constricting, always freeing and easy in wear – oozed with colors and textures, all thanks to horizontal strips of organza that created a mille-feuille effect. The collection of course had the designer’s laid-back tailoring, perfect for any occasion. Silk pajama sets looked super compelling, especially when topped with big, funky flower brooches. “We just wanted to take a moment and sit down,” Assoulin said. “We love to do what we do. We wanted to bring optimism, color, hope, and a little bit of humor.” To another 10 years!