Layers of Honesty. Lemaire AW24

January 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Christophe Lemaire and Sarah Linh Tran just can’t help layering. But no one does it like them in this business. They manage to extract a certain poetry in the way they layer knits, flowing silks and outerwear. For their autumn-winter 2024 season, the Lemaire designers explained they sought a more intimate encounter with the clothes while wanting to welcome people into their “environment” – metaphorically, as their brand’s soul, and literally, as in their newly-opened headquarters. “Humbly and honestly,” said Tran. “For us, it’s a beautiful story of building a collective with strong values and a passion for doing good things,” added Lemaire. “Not so many independent brands in Paris have a studio, an atelier, all the departments in one building, so we wanted people to feel all of this.” The show’s staging comprised a raised, circular runway conceived by artist Fran Cottell. As the models (diverse in age and background) entered from the courtyard, they made the loop with clever yet natural choreography – lingering long enough to have their doubled-up, tone-on-tone jackets noticed; twirling to accentuate the movement of a ballet-style wrap skirt; proceeding with purpose in a relaxed, cacao-colored suit or total look in limestone. One model wearing black stirrup leggings, a sheer overskirt and block heels had a pair of derbies swinging from her bag. Somehow in Lemaire, effortless and impeccable coexist.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Masterclass. Wales Bonner AW24

January 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

This Paris Fashion Week, there are brands that scream and shout into the void. But there are also brands like Wales Bonner that focus on quiet gestures with grand impacts. The autumn-winter 2024 collection, titled “Dream Study“, was the result of Grace Wales Bonner‘s time spent in Howard University’s Moorland-Springarn Research Centre, imbuing a contemporary collegiate wardrobe with nostalgic sentiment for its illustrious alumni. What really caught her interest in the storied Black university’s archives, though, were the yearbooks. “Particularly the ones from the 1990s,” she explained. “Every year they have a homecoming, with performances of different hip-hop artists coming to celebrate. So it was kind of both exploring the history of the place, but also this kind of musical intersection that’s always been something important to me. So I was thinking about conscious and cosmic hip-hop. How it kind of takes on the mantle of intellectual thinking, and kind of takes it further.” Models (Tyler Mitchell and Imaan Hammam among them) wore academic staples, beautifully adorned, as well as relaxed cashmere knitwear, tailoring trimmed with crocheted Indian mirror-work, while outwear pieces were crafted from vintage kantha quilts. Note the feather brooches which were dotted with pearls, lapiz lazuli and amethyst beads. It’s fascinating to watch how Wales Bonner does this: teaching, foregrounding academic literary references (with every show, there’s a reading list), creating delightful, never-overworked collection (just over 30 looks), and building long-term collaborations with entities as far apart in fashion as adidas and Anderson and Sheppard of Savile Row.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Lived-In. Auralee AW24

January 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

The Japanese label Auralee delivered a compact take on ready-to-wear for autumn-winter 2024: great clothes that are covetable, spark joy and are no-non-sense. The brand launched for the spring 2015 in Tokyo, and Ryota Iwai has been showing his collections on the calendar in Paris since 2019, but this is the first time he’s putting his clothes on the runway. When designing the new collection, Iwai considered specifically the hours in the evening when one is transitioning between working into simply living. “It’s that break after the first half of the day and the end of the day,” he explained. This, the way the designer sees it, is a time of brief anticipation. You’re going home from work, you’re about to have dinner with your friends, meet up with your family, run a couple of errands. Your clothes are lived-in, the properness and formality of the morning washed away by daily activity. While this collection captures that idea literally in a range of playful styling tricks – dry cleaning hangs over forearms, sweaters and coats peek out of overstuffed briefcases, gloves are held or stuffed in pockets rather than worn – it’s in the nuances of the materiality and cut in Iwai’s clothes where the ease of the end of day takes is conveyed best. There’s a ’90s feel to Iwai’s tailoring, but its proportions are distinctly contemporary: coats are streamlined and have extra long sleeves and hems, trousers pool over sneakers, and structured shoulder jackets appear hefty but are lightweight to touch. Most inviting is Iwai’s knitwear (made from either Mongolian cashmere or Peruvian alpaca), made to fit amply around the body, creating wrinkles and creases.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Cowboys. Louis Vuitton AW24

January 17, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Two seasons might be two early to call, but as they say, first impression is the right one. Pharrell Williams’ direction at Louis Vuitton feels like watching a very self-satisfied kid play around with new, shiny toys. Or rather, as in case of the LVMH machine, huge resources. For his first fashion show for the brand, the musician decided to turn Paris into his sandpit. Why not make Pont Neuf (and eventually paralyze Parisian traffic for a day) a runway venue? Then, for his sophomore season, Pharrell picks a new theme: now he wants to play with cowboys! There’s no need for a further review of the autumn-winter 2024 outing at this point. The clothes – or rather overstyled outfits, some better, some worse – speak straightforwardly for themselves. Cowboys. Horses. So Ken.

I might have never been a number one fan of Virgil Abloh’s work for Louis Vuitton, but he had concepts and ideas, sometimes very risky and envelope-pushing ones, flipping this brand upside down. Pharrell is orchestrating (or at least is a face of it) a big, big marketing ploy, with no much consistency, coherence or sense. Will it turn out that well in the long run? Time will tell. I might never understand it. And I’m fine with that.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Girl Uninterrupted. Zimmermann SS24

December 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

I’ve never been a Zimmermann person, but since Lana Del Rey was wearing the brand’s dresses throughout her 2023 tour, I had to reinvestigate its ultra-girl charm. And I must say that I’m in love with Nicky Zimmermann‘s spring-summer 2024 offering. In a collection that contained three main and sometimes intermingling strands – sportily versatile knit pieces; volumized many-ruffled and guipure-edged georgette and charmeuse dresses; and slouchy but smart tailoring in denim and leather – you had a sense of breezy easiness. The pastel jersey looks resembled off-duty dancers’ attire, built for freedom of movement but not visually defined by technicality: a compelling alternative for the yoga-pant constituency. This sporty duality carried over into racerback white lace crops, which were used as formfitting eveningwear base layers over pretty, vaguely Sicilian baptism-gown butterfly-and-flower-pattern voile dresses edged with more cappuccino froths of lace. There was similar genre-blending in looks that placed spaghetti-strap, sometimes semi-sheer tiered mid-length backless dresses over appealingly generous, carrot-cut washed jeans, or light lace tops under textured tailoring. The dresses included a caped and draped robe in graduated dégradé patches of violet, orange, and pale yellow derived from abstract landscapes. Zimmermann said the often layered and backless flower-bomb gowns and shirtdresses had been purposefully given a washed, faded finish because “we want it to feel that the girls are walking and the flowers are just around them.” Sometimes garlanded with lace petals and handsome golden jewelry, including bunch-of-grapes earrings, these had a Dionysian freshness to them. As the viral TikTok sound sums up, “this is so Lana Del Rey vinyl“.