SS20

Ninalicious. Nina Ricci SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Packages of “Ninalicious” bubble gum were gifted to guests at Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh’s Nina Ricci show. This was a light-hearted nod to their new season silhouette, a floating dress in airy cloque (and in bubble-gum pink, of course) It’s their second season at the label, and they stir things up by taking the historical maison in an unexpected direction. For them Nina Ricci isn’t just about safe, lady-like dressing. The spring-summer 2020 line-up had humour and a quirky kind of youthfulness. Just look at the brightly colored buckets that functioned as bags and hats (these are great!). The designers said they were inspired by a summertime trip to the beach with their nephews and that they were after a sense of nostalgia. The joyous colour palette pleases the eye, just as the peplum tops and XXL ruffle dresses. But in general the collection lacks a stricter edit. The sharp tailoring doesn’t work with the overall softness of the line-up. Some of the silhouette look too exaggerated (take the opening look’s white top with unnecessary, big shoulder pads). Also, I feel like Botter and Herrebrugh still haven’t established their Nina Ricci look. Maybe it’s too early and they need time. Still, big thumbs up for their optymistic thinking.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Aristocratic. Loewe SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

“Aristocratic” is one of the words Jonathan Anderson used to describe his spring-summer 2020 Loewe collection. Indeed, there was something very royal about the earthy parachute coat-dress, multi-layered lace collars and the sublime, white night-gowns. Historical dressing was the key for Jonathan this season, and he conveyed that idea like no one else. Anderson isn’t new in putting craft and handwork at the heart of Loewe, and this time he pushed extremes of craftsmanship luxury to ethereal heights. For the collection, he moved into the realms of “a different kind of craft, which is ultimately historical,” he said. “I looked at the 16th and 17th centuries, where the craft was in the tiniest thing . . . where you had to rely on precision.” Chantilly, guipure, and marguerite lace; drawn threadwork; sprigged voile shapes. There’s romance, and there’s impressive, hand-made process behind all those details. Here’s another aspect of the collection: Loewe is a Spanish house. The aristocratic Spanish-ness is present as well in the collection, even in the pannier-hip dresses he sent out. It’s a shape that goes in line with Spanish cultural significance (think Velázquez’s 1656 Las Meninas portrait of the Spanish royal family). All his revivals of lace and linen fit into that context too. The marvelous fabrics were depicted in the paintings of Goya and Zurbarán, all exhibited at Madrid’s Prado Museum. Summing up, this collection is a feast for the eyes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

When It Gets Hot. Isabel Marant SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

After reviewing Rick Owens’ latest collection, looking at Isabel Marant might feel like being abruptly taken back to Earth. But the consistence of Marant has its charms, even if her eternal Parisian woman escapes the city. Spring-summer 2020’s beach-life girl (and boy) look forever appealing while wearing sleeveless knits, slouchy denim pants and vintage-y, washed cotton jackets with big, confident shoulders. Loosely-fit jumpsuits and festival boots are another highlights. In the end, when summer gets stinking hot, this is what you really want to wear (well, maybe the leather overall – this can wait until next September).

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Tecuatl. Rick Owens SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

“Stoic Bauhaus Aztec Priestesses in Art Deco Valhalla,” was how Rick Owens described this season’s collection, which took place on a bubble-filled runway in the backyard of Palais de Tokyo (“like something out of Disney’s ‘Fantasia’”). Owens’ latest womenswear offering is fire. It’s so, so mind-blowing! But those outer-space goddesses haven’t come up from nowhere. With this collection, the designer honored his 87-year-old Mexican immigrant mother (the collection’s title, Tecuatl, is a nod to Rick’s grandmother’s Mixtec maiden name). Owens was raised in the United States, lives in France, and manufactures his clothes in Italy. “That all wouldn’t work without open borders,” he summed up, alluding to the fight in the USA over a border wall with its southern neighbor. Back to the collection and its models: they looked like ethereal majesties in their towering platform boots and Aztec-slash-Metropolis-inspired headgear. The Metropolis reference is no coincidence. In between the lines you could read in Owens’s fantastic vision a criticism of Donald Trump, who’s called Mexicans “animals” and “criminals,” and worse. Fritz Lang’s antiauthoritarian masterpiece depicts a grim underworld peopled by mistreated workers, i.e. the migrant farmers and other undocumented immigrants who do the hard labor that keeps America’s upper classes fed. But back to Rick’s stunning, beautifully disturbing fashion: exaggerated shoulders of jackets, architectural tabard skirts, odd protrusions jutting from pelvises… this all desires a loud “WOW“.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Y/Project SS20

| Design & Culture by Ed

Glenn Martens of Y/Project is a virtuoso of distorting, elongating, deconstructing and, simply speaking, creating silhouettes that at the same time have a historical twist. Many of the spring-summer 2020 looks jumped in time: the 1890s black satin evening dress, the bustle now transplanted to the plunging décolleté; the 1930s lingerie boudoir slip, buttons slithering down on the bias, with lace trimming the bust; Belle Epoque velvets clashed with 2019’s love for exaggerated forms. Eveningwear is big this season at Y/Project, also because it brings a strong female sexuality. The daywear was classic Glenn Martens: a voluminous trench coat, a shirt-dress with an odd collar, a mint track-suit draped in a way that it looks couture.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.