SS20

Dries Van Noten x Christian Lacroix in Paris

| Design & Culture by Ed

Three weeks ago I’ve been to my beloved Paris – the pre-coronavirus-outbreak times… – and now is the moment to share some of my highlights. A trip to the Dries Van Noten store on the Left Bank is a ritual, but this time, it was even more important because of the very special collection that is there. I mean spring-summer 2020, the one where Dries collaborated with the legendary designer Christian Lacroix. You might have already observed that I really fell in love with this one-of-a-kind collaboration. Or better, say match; dialogue; meeting. When this bacame a fact during the last Paris fashion week, in that very moment the planets moved or maybe the time stopped. This collection is something you never thought you needed in your life. I’m still in absolute awe, while going through the looks over and over again. “The idea is to bring fun ideas, nothing too serious, things that I think perhaps we have lost a little in fashion”, Van Noten told the press back then. “I wanted to do something joyful”. Dries and Christian weren’t acquainted before their collab (it came up spontaneously), but their contrasts became actual similitaries once they started working together. They fulfilled each other. Lacroix’s iconic legacy of ‘never too much’ combined with Van Noten’s mastership of colour-and-print balance. Looking at the final result, all the Lacroix signatures are in place, filtered through Van Noten’s sensibility: polka dots, broad stripes, animal prints, ruffles, matador jackets, gigot sleeves, silks woven with scaled up, bright flowers, pouf skirts, duchesse satin and grosgrain. The vocabulary of Dries Van Noten is fused with that of Mr. Christian Lacroix throughout: said jacquards have been scanned and appear as prints across cotton and organza; lightweight polyesters, made out of recycled plastic bottles and coated papers rustle alongside precious French silks; basic white tops are decorated with a single overblown embroidered sleeve here, jeans with an appliquéd feather or feather print on one leg there. If Mr. Lacroix was among the most feted couturiers of the latter part of the 20th century (in his own words, he “failed with ready-to-wear”), Dries Van Noten is one of the pret-a-porter leaders of today. It’s a match made in heaven. Such fashion wonders happen very, very rarely, so seeing them IRL, in the charming Van Noten boutique, was an ecstatic experience. Below are photos I took there, mixed with my new collages feauturing the collection photographed by Tommy Ton. As most of us are staying at home now, here‘s a link to the interview where both designers talk about their work – and even if you’ve seen it, it’s worth rewatching!

7 Quai Malaquais – Paris

(The place is temporarily closed. If you are inspired by my Parisian coverage, I’m really happy about, but please have in mind that now isn’t a safe time for any sorts of travelling. Stay at home!)

Photos and collages by Edward Kanarecki, photos of the collection photographed by Tommy Ton for Dries Van Noten.

The Grand Finale. Jean Paul Gaultier Couture SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Euphoric. Bold. Joyous. Fantastic. Pushing boundaries. Forever iconic. That’s Jean Paul Gaultier. Many of the conversations we are having today – about such issues as diversity, gender fluidity, recycling, and sustainability – are built into the Gaultier DNA, and reused by other designer subconsciously. Since his first show in 1976, he has shown pan-generational models of all sizes, genders, and ethnicities on his runway, because they reflected the real-life people on the streets who inspired his style. Rossy De Palma, Blond Ambition Tour cone bras, Dita Von Teese, leather, trompe l’oeil, Beatrice Dalle, France, queer, sailors, sex, body… COUTURE! Although it’s Gaultier’s last fashion show ever, it’s not the end of his career. Can’t wait to see what he’s up to next!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Shades of Elegance. Valentino Couture SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

From all the couture shows this season, I (of course) anticipated Pierpaolo Piccioli‘s line-up for Valentino the most. For spring-summer 2020, a very different facet of Piccioli’s imagination transpired. The designer challenged himself to stop the operatic volumes and begin his search for a new silhouette. This time, it was structured, linear, fishtailed, modular, yet still drenched in color and pattern by turns. Looking back at the previous, ecstatic collections he dreamed up for us, he decided it was time to step off the path. “I hate it when people talk about ‘storytelling.’ I am not a storyteller. I don’t have the feeling that Cristóbal Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Charles James, Mainbocher, whatever—I don’t feel they had stories of the season.” Trusting himself to free-association meant exploring form and emotion in ways that emphasized choice, variety, and the ingenious devices that only the Valentino craftspeople are able to realize. There were more trousers, more columns than before; an interest in constructing layers in ways which only the wearer will know about. Bubbles, bows and plenty of Valentino red recurred. There was a gorgeous color palette – purple, eau de nil, scarlet, pink, mint… and black (this one looked super refined in the eveningwear section). As usual, the best.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

A Lesson In Parisian Style. Bouchra Jarrar Couture SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

So happy to see Bouchra Jarrar back at work on her name-sake label. After her traumatic time at Lanvin, one would wonder if she ever comes back to the industry. She did this couture season, quietly, yet with confidence. “I wanted to do fashion that resembles me,” Bouchra said moments before her intimate show. Staged in her own apartment, with a slender sheaf of wheat leaning against the wall and raw quartz crystals displayed under a glass dome on a marble mantel, the presentation of Edition n°1 brought together a dozen or so of her very recognizable signatures, primarily influenced by menswear. A backless gilet was ticked out with feathers and pearls. Ample trousers were grounded by a merch-style T-shirt. Feather Maasai-inspired bracelets reprised her sports stripes. Other standout pieces included a very pretty fringed bias-cut tweed top; a sublime khaki overcoat with silver buttons; a flawless perfecto with ribbed shoulders. The presentation was a lesson in Parisian style: take a white shirt, impeccably cut black trousers, and eclectic accessories (like a fringed Berber-weave scarf) and suddenly you’ve gone from standard to elevated chic. Jarrar called those Berber weaves “ethnic with a perfume of couture.” A Paris-based couture artisan with whom Jarrar has collaborated everywhere she has worked makes each one after Jarrar picks the yarn and the dyes. She chose a russet hue, for example, in tribute to her Moroccan roots. “These are my colors. They remind me of how my grandparents wore their shawls. They carry all the warmth of my origins,” she said. The loyal, couture-buying client base of Jarrar will be more than pleased.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Haute Upcycling. Maison Margiela Couture SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Upcycling the heritage of the craft to make something for the present that is beautifully creative: John Galliano tackled the challenge of our times with his glorious Maison Margiela haute couture collection. For a designer who began his career with a graduation collection about the French Revolution in a time when young people in London were chopping up vintage clothes from markets, this was almost a reclamation of all of Galliano’s first principles, elevated and reenergized amid the 21st-century youth rebellion against waste and overconsumption. Most of the collection was made from materials that already exist: “memories” of bourgeois classics, recut, turned inside out, dissected, collaged, and punched through in a riot of color. Galliano spoke in a house podcast about how he and his studio team had sat and decided “there are too many clothes in the world.” He reflected on the rise of the bourgeoisie and capitalism after the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. Next thing his assistants were out scouring thrift shops for materials to work into the collection. Haute upcycling is not just possible; it can look refined, intriguing, incredible. For instance, bedsheets were repurposed as evening capes, a delicate elegance found in wisps of pink and apricot chiffon draped and taped in place as in a spontaneous Madame Grès–like moment. The attitude of a girl in an emerald 1950s ball gown veiled with a black tulle cape seemed to symbolize it all. Striding forward in an echo of an Old World couture pose, she held one arm elbow out, her yellow-gloved hand in a fist. Cut, mix, create, amaze.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.