Toned-Down. Ludovic De Saint Sernin AW22

March 4, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

For autumn-winter 2022, Ludovic De Saint Sernin took a slightly different path than usual. The new season pressed current Y2K generational fashion buttons, but also signaled de Saint Sernin’s design ability to think through what might come after that. A part of the thrill for him is belonging to the all-about-me self-invention of social media. So he walked in his own show – in a brown crepe open-necked shirt and matching flares, flanked by a couple of lanky lookalikes. “Welcome to my life,” he declared beforehand. “This is what I do. It’s about owning up to being who you are, your own muse.” He loved the fact that Gigi Hadid appeared in a big shirt and white boots, channeling “the Malibu girl going out in her boyfriend’s shirt. Like all the celebs I grew up with who were being chased by tabloid paparazzi in the 2000s – like Paris and Britney. “ Bella, as the finale, wore an almost sheer black chiffon halterneck dress “a bit like a nightdress. For when you have to go on the red carpet at the end of the day, but would really rather be in bed.” De Saint Sernin is known for his overtly sexy, libertine, gender-blurring crystal mesh bras and halters – and his signature cross-laced fly jeans. All of that was there, now logo’d with a LDSS sparkly print. He extended that further into body-con dressing for boys: a black leather miniskirt; a crossover jersey crop-top. But the big surprise in his collection was a whole other thing: minimal elegance in shades of brown and taupe (which instantly reminded me of a Jacquemus collection from a couple of seasons ago). Overcoats, a long bustier column dress, a brown shirt and skirt: luxurious oversized sweaters. It stood apart, in a preternaturally accomplished way. “I wanted to push the idea of daywear,” Ludovic concluded. “Because everyone’s doing mini-mini, as I have. But I thought it would be cool to go elegant and long.” It made for an glimpse of where de Saint Sernin, and his whole generation might be headed with their fashion desires.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Très Cool. Coperni AW22

March 4, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Coperni ate it up this season! This is definitely my favourite collection coming from Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer‘s Parisian label so far. The hoodie-lapelled blazers, overcoats and fleeces that you see Coperni’s It-model cast wearing so coolly here represented a challenging design brief for Vaillant and Meyer’s tailoring atelier to achieve: they had to look good worn both up and down. As Vaillant showed on his phone pre-show, the women of that atelier – named Cap Est Sarl – sent the designers pictures of themselves wearing the prototypes as that development progressed towards runway-readiness in the last few weeks. “They are so cute, always trying the pieces before sending them – I love them,” said Meyer. Added Vaillant: “They are in Ukraine, in Kyiv: we hadn’t heard from them for a few days. They are safe for now. And we dedicate this collection to them.”

This show placed this collection within the pressure cooker arena in which the insecure adolescent chrysalis is forged into the self-aware young adult butterfly: high school. On a runway framed by school lockers and to an excellent faux-radio broadcast of upbeat disaffection the models first emerged as laconically withdrawn, cloistered in those hooded pieces of generically reinvented tailoring. These did indeed work with the hood/lapel worn back off the head. Other cleverly twisted takes on tailoring were the disassembled jacket crop tops and miniskirts and a twist-fronted Le Smoking jacket with cut outs at the midriff whose construction translated finely into menswear fleeces and trench coats. A waistcoat, sometimes cut in a crystal pinstripe, also incorporated a hood that came with cute little Batman ears. Aran knit short-sleeved bodies featuring that hood and a circular cutout at the back were eccentric takes on a preppy knitwear mafia staple. Jeans and leather pants that were worn as gaiters cut to just above the knee were a funny riff on low-waistband rebellion. Upcycled Adidas Gazelles and zip-decorated pumps aside, notable footwear included chisel toed articulated soled derbies whose vectored shape was inspired by the Tesla Cybertruck prototype. Coperni’s emblematic Swipe bag appeared in blown glass: calamity was avoided when the model carrying it caught her heel on the runway and pitched forward before pulling off a graceful recovery. We shifted towards the big butterfly-emerges moment – prom night, of course – via a grungily pretty asymmetric dress in white French velvet worn with those Adidas, and a super clever minidress made entirely of upcycled ties. Prom queen candidate gowns substituted tulle for rose strewn latex and a dancefloor’s worth of who’s-sorry-now sheer minidresses. This was an extremely witty collection that was very cleverly conceived by the designers – and wonderfully cut by those Kyiv craftswomen.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Jackie And Carolyn. The Row Resort 2023

March 4, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

After two years off the runway, Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen brought their resort 2023 collection for The Row to Paris. They weren’t doing interviews and the brand didn’t release a statement, but when American designers have swapped New York for Paris in the past they’ve typically talked about the city’s more international audience and elevated playing field. The Olsens need little help with their profiles, so let’s assume they thought they had something new to say about their fashion. As it turned out, they did, and it speaks volumes. The line-up finds them in a more playful frame of mind than we’ve come to associate with The Row. The elegance and sophistication remain, but they also dabbled in hyperbole, in the form of extra-long sleeves and neck grazing, exaggerated 1970s collars, and explored surprising retro flourishes like pillbox hats, muffs, and top handle bags in the crooks of arms. If Jackie Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy joined wardrobes, this The Row collection would be it. Some looks, including an evening dress made with a chartreuse-colored wool blanket wrapped and draped from the torso, reminded you of the Japanese designers who made their own transitions to Paris in the 1980s. Is the Olsens’ minimalist phase over? Not exactly. Most of these looks were head-to-toe monochrome or black-and-white, and there were no prints or much in the way of other distractions. The silhouette was still rooted in tailoring and the shoes were low-heeled and grounding. The difference was this collection’s looseness. Not in terms of volumes, but in terms of the fun it was willing to have. See the fine cashmere sweaters that twisted in back to reveal the white poplin shirts below them, the jabots as oversize as the pointy collars they accessorized, the back-to-front coats, and those long sleeves. Graceful fashion that makes you smile feels like the right instinct for the current moment.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

There Is Hope. Acne Studios AW22

March 3, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

This was one of Acne Studios‘ strongest collections in a while. It had some very surprising turns (eveningwear!), it had an inspiring sustainability factor, and it somehow captured what fashion can be in turbulent times. But lets start from the beginning. When Jonny Johansson was a teenager still at school he lobbied his mother to get him some Levi’s 501s. Mrs. Johansson resisted, bought Swedish, and came back with two pairs of denim pants that she’d snagged from H&M for the same price as one pair of red tags. “She said this is the best choice,” Johansson sighed backstage. At the same time, however, Mrs. J also picked up a jacket which Jonny initially was not into – but which he decided to have a go at turning into something he liked. “It needed to be shortened and then I added a belt. I went into school wearing it, not knowing if people would notice it, or notice that it was home-made – which was not cool,” he said today. None of Johansson’s schoolmates reacted either way. Well, just look at him now. This collection leaned into Acne’s denim heritage in front of an influence-loaded audience with great effect. Upcycled patched denim paperbag skirts, an upcycled patched denim crini dress, and the opening look, a wide-leg garment dyed denim skirt, all paid homage to the single medium that was chiefly responsible for this multi-hyphenate success. Against this he played denim’s natural co-conspirator, leather, via a series of double-breasted trench coats reduced to slit-skirted armless dresses, sometimes also overdyed. Other notable elements included tuft-lined and sometimes-quilted regal blanket dresses in grandma florals, crystal embedded rib-kit socks over shoes, grungily faded jersey separates, layered fringed curtain dresses, and repeated returns to the post-Talking Heads boxy blazer in overdyed leather that was another early Acne signature. As tattered and ragged in its delivery as it was complete in its conception, this was an Acne collection that seemed more comfortable with itself than some of Johansson’s previous ventures. The show was accompanied by an original live performance by musician and composer Suzanne Ciani, a pioneer of electronic music who embraced the liberating technologies of synth to transform the way we listen to music today. As a last-minute change, the finale soundtrack reminded one of a war battleground rattle. The nomadic silhouettes walking on the elevated runway with these disturbing sound sensations in the background felt like a hopeful vision: in the end, the good overcomes the evil.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Experience. Dries Van Noten AW22

March 3, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Dries Van Noten still hasn’t returned to the runway format. But this season, he delivered a full experience. For autumn-winter 2022, the Belgian designer hosted a mannequin presentation at the dilapidated Hotel de Guise (in this mansion belonging to an old French family, the clock apparently stopped 50 years ago). Grouped in paneled rooms, the liveless models were staged in various scenes: as if in conversation, leaning watching over bannisters, lurking in a bathroom, glimpsed in a closet, standing on tables or suddenly, disconcertingly, seated on the attic stairs. In other words: this was Dries Van Noten in his element, curating an interior environment instead of a fashion show. It was the perfect setting for absorbing the novel shock of suddenly being able to see and touch the richly layered textures of his collection again – and to sense a distinct frisson of darkness and perversity in the air. The event was also a launch of Van Noten’s perfume and lipstick line, which in the end made even more sense. The invited editors could completely immerse in Dries’ world, from the garments to the senses. What about the new season clothes? They all looked sumptuous: the animal print coat layered over deep crimson silk-velvet trousers; glam holographic sequins with denim trousers and a wildly nubbly wool scarf; 1940s dresses dripped with lines of stones and additionally enriched with opulent, vintage-style jewelry.

Had he found himself designing more intensely, more richly, during the closed-in times? “No.” Van Noten replied. “It is always like this. You just never see it when it’s up on a runway.” He’s been one of the increasingly few hold-outs against convening physical shows this season – and one of the few who really adapted to exercising the creative possibilities of fashion filmmaking. Using the half-way house of this expressive presentation was something else, fully playing into his multiple talents as a curator of exhibitions, antique interiors aficionado, gardener (which connects with the perfumes) and being the Belgian guy with the Antwerpian memories of alternative parties in the ’70s and raves in the ’90s. He makes a very good point: “I think it’s that whole tactile moment. It’s not that I don’t want to go back to fashion shows, because I think it’s another thing, but this is really nice to experience. This way of presenting creates closeness; the fact that you can explain things, touch things, see things. You can stage it so that you can tell more stories than in a fashion show. So for me, it was a very interesting way of thinking.” So, to the “story.” Van Noten had been researching the work of Carlo Mollino, the Italian architect and photographer whose life spanned surrealism and the ’70s. “After he died, erotic Polaroids he had taken of women, nude and semi-dressed, were found in his apartment.” Look them up, and you find how Van Noten had come up with the maxi-coat shapes, the leather chokers, the ‘kinky’ lace-up boots. He also put his finger on another popular ’70s cult object – a down-padded, Charles James-like jacket with a deep tubular edge. Puffy volumes gone glamorous, circle shapes and other extreme geometries are part of the avant-garde news from Paris. Somehow, while staying within his own world, speaking to his own customers and bringing his whole character to creating his beauty/lifestyle lines, Dries Van Noten still has ways of clocking what’s happening outside.