Undying Love. John Galliano AW95

December 27, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

The festive time lets you look back at some fashion history in a relaxed, pleasurable way. After all the food, gift unwrapping, Christmas table talks and re-watches of both “Home Alone” films, I indulged myself in the beauty of John Galliano archives. And one of his pre-establishment collections just felt so right in this moment. Galliano’s autumn-winter 1995 “Dolores” collection marks a pivotal moment. It was essentially his last as an indie designer. About four months after this presentation, Galliano was named the creative director of Givenchy; a year later he transferred to Christian Dior and his namesake brand was acquired by LVMH. The Dolores of the show title was the actor Dolores del Rio. The invitation to the presentation consisted of pages from the heroine’s “tortured correspondence from the Rose of Alhambra hotel to her lover, Jaime, aboard the ocean liner Berengaria, along with a lock of hair and a broken locket,” reported The New York Times. Arriving at the venue, guests were ushered onto a snow-covered rooftop set littered with scows and populated by burly sailors. One of them, the report continued, “with bare feet and red manicured toes leaned against a chimney reading a book called Killer in Drag.” Perhaps most exuberant were the flamenco dresses, which allowed Galliano, who was born in Gibraltar, to iterate on his own heritage. There were ruffled numbers cut on the bias in shades of lavender and fuchsia, and peinetas (hair combs) took the place of tiaras. The Catholic imagination was also at work. A model in a whisper-light dress of virginal white carried a rosary and was followed by a shipmate wearing an ersatz crown made of prayer cards. Wearing a silk fuchsia number with a tulle bolero, Kate Moss kissed Johnny Depp seating in the front row. Another real love story of this collection was that between a man and his scissors. Galliano romanced the cloth with a technical savoir faire that was awe-inspiring. The carnation dress worn by Carla Bruni was not only cut on the bias but seamless, thanks to the floral inserts. One of these dresses is in the collection of The Met’s Costume Institute, and the catalog description notes that Galliano used the carnation “as a symbol of undying love.” What more is there to say?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Techno Mermaid. Ottolinger SS23

November 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Ottolinger designers Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient opened their spring-summer 2023 fashion show with a sharp look: a deconstructed belt–meets–bra top whose straps covered the nipples and little else, paired with low-slung leather-look trousers made from recycled polyester. Gen Z’s love of near nudity knows no bounds, and the fan base that lounged on the show venue’s mattress seats wearing skin-baring looks from the Berlin-based label would think nothing of wearing a crop top to talk shop. The designers recently launched a pre-collection that they said had allowed them to tackle more conceptual ideas in their runway shows. No longer beholden to showing denim and mesh dresses, which are their big commercial hits, this freed them up to present deconstructed biker jackets and skintight bodysuits. Ironically, though, the strongest pieces were arguably the most commercial, especially the dresses that draped and hugged the body with some rubbery-looking embellishments. Dipping items in rubber is a trait that reads recognizably Ottolinger: The punked-up court shoes, which saw a classic pump wrapped in a futuristic rubber-like casing, were as covetable as the diamanté jewelry dipped in brightly colored rubber that currently sells well on the label’s website. They’d do well to continue hammering home those codes as the Y2K trend keeps rolling and numerous other labels look to replicate their success with the sexy and the skintight.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Surfaces. Valentino Resort 2023

October 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Valentino‘s resort 2023 collection was conceived as a precursor to the spring 2023 outing which we’ve seen about two weeks ago. Stripped of the stagecraft of the show, it was representative of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s line of thought, both conceptual and visual – and it honestly felt more convincing. “Fashion shows are there to solidify the narration around your values and your identity,” Piccioli said. “Resort is the moment when fashion speaks its own language. There’s no storytelling here, just work on construction, cut, silhouettes, color. It’s just moda, fashion, in its purest self. Of course, for me, clothes are always about how real people inhabit them.” For Piccioli, there’s no moda without humanity. He named the collection “Surfaces“, emphasizing the visuals of an all-over, head-to-toe silhouette where textures and shapes were turned into a sort of minimal continuum. While Piccioli has been toying around with minimalism for quite some time as a way to highlight the individuality of the wearer – “you reduce the excess on the garment to spotlight the attention on the face,” he said – it’s actually a concept rooted in Valentino Garavani’s 1960s aesthetics, when lines were pure, volumes were close to the body, and decoration was kept to a minimum. Fluidity was an element of sensuality that didn’t detract from the purity of design. Resort was in conversation with those style fundamentals. At the spring show Piccioli indulged in fluidity and movement enhanced by an abundance of sequined shine, but here he kept the silhouette neat, slim, and very short. Trim contours and head-to-toe maximalist surfaces were in evidence, for example, in a black macramé lace slip dress paired with matching thigh-high legging-boots, or in a mini shift dress encrusted with white lace, which somehow stretched into matching stocking-boots edged with leather. A day-evening ensemble, comprised of a dramatic long drawstring circle gown in amethyst faille, cinched with a marigold sash and worn with an oversize double-breasted blazer in cinnamon taffeta, was contrasted by a pristine white cotton shirt with macramé details. It highlighted not only the designer’s eye for color – no PPPink, thanks god – but also the cool spirit of versatility, the mixing of codes, and the couture flair that he’s persistently after. Punk or bourgeois, timeless or not, it definitely sparks joy.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Gimmick-y. Louis Vuitton SS23

October 9, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

I’m having a hard time in understanding what’s Nicolas Ghesquière‘s Louis Vuitton is about lately. Once a leader in fashion that was both ergonomic and absolutely intriguing, for seasons now the designer does some of the most gimmick-y fashion – and not in an ironic way. Also, I can’t picture who is actually wearing Louis Vuitton’s women’s ready-to-wear, expect for celebrities who are trapped by life-long contracts. The last show of Paris Fashion Week doesn’t feel like a cherry on top, but an event to which people feel forced to go to… because it’s LV after all. The show’s location was Cour Carrée. Ghesquière invited his longtime friend French artist Philippe Parreno to create an installation, and together with the Hollywood production designer James Chinlund they created a set that felt a little as if a spaceship had landed in the heart of Paris and the aliens had set up a fun fair for locals to see the special attraction. “It’s the first time I designed a collection in dialogue, in correspondence, with someone,” Ghesquière said at a preview, adding that Parreno’s sculpture was in fact “kind of a flower, a carnival flower.” Its massive proportions inspired the supersizing that happened on the runway. The cloche clés key holder that accessorizes many of the brand’s bags was enlarged, as were its Vachetta leather luggage tags, and the wallet that Ghesquière wears on a chain attached to a belt loop became a portfolio that the models clutched to their hips. Most of it looked silly. Something similar was happening with the cumbersome clothes. You might recognize the giant zipper pulls on HoYeon Jung’s opening look from one of the first Ghesquière collections. The designer reported that they’re the largest ever manufactured, and the process of zooming and exaggerating one element of a garment led to the scaling up of other parts as well. Which explains the hyperbolic neckline and hips of Jung’s crop top and skirt, and the oversized straps dangling from the inner hems of vests and jackets, like sportswear panniers. “There is always that game of what is real and what is manipulated,” he explained. “Being with Philippe and working through the eyes of an artist,” Ghesquière said, “sometimes I had the feeling we were a little childish. I think I was maybe more free to break some boundaries for myself.” Releasing your inner child is fine. But I wish Nicolas delivered fashion that’s substantial and not so pointlessly painful for the eye.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Reinterpreting Classics. Miu Miu SS23

October 9, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Miuccia Prada, with a Miu Miu show on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, proved that she knows where she’s going – comparing to other designers and brands, big and small, who in majority presented some of the mildest and direction-less collections in years. Even though Miu Miu orbits around a similar theme for the third season in a row, it’s refreshing to see Prada’s “sister” brand in such assertive and distinct mode. Those mini-skirts are still going strong, just like leathers in various shades of browns and beiges. Corporate tailoring continues to be aggressively cut-up and raw. But there are a couple of novelties that will definitely become the next Miu best-sellers (and are both easy styling tips as well as vintage shopping inspirations). A gray cap-sleeved T-shirt worn over a beige jumper worn over a gray long-sleeved T-shirt worn over a white T-shirt, they were all very ordinary garments, but certainly delivered a mood. And styled this way, they didn’t look so normal at all. “I’m very serious but also fun. I am both,” Miuccia said backstage of the show. That duality was reflected in this line-up. She showed some clothes so simple they weren’t clothes at all: primitively cut fabrics fixed to the body with fastenings, like an apron skirt tied at the hip or pieces of nylon fashioned into ponchos, dresses and skirts with drawstrings. Strands of nylon were tied around the lower hip of pleated skirts with drawstrings and worn like cummerbunds, and a bandeau top held together by a nylon strap with a plastic clip buckle seemed to have been repurposed from the performance wardrobe. Miu Miu is on a roll, delivering a kind of fashion that resonates with the sexy, subversive, product-focused tastes of the digital generations – even through a simplified lens. Prada framed her show in fittingly odd projections by Chinese artist Shuang Li, who had sharks bouncing off planets and walls, and a soundtrack featuring a spoken-word love poem by the same artist. If there was an upbeat mood in the room, it came from above. “I went through a really… friends died and so on,” Prada said. “Recently, I’m in a good mood, for personal happenings for my friends.”