SS22

Paris, baby. Saint Laurent SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

We are in Paris, baby! Paris Fashion Week started with a bang, all thanks to Saint Laurent which returned to the usual schedule. There was a magical moment towards the end of the spring-summer 2022 show when Anthony Vaccarello’s towering waterfall structure rained softly on his guests’ faces as the last models made their way off the runway to Zimmz’s entrancing “Eclipse”, the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the distance. “I was kind of sick of listening to all those people talking about the future of fashion. For me, we just had to switch off. That was it,” Vaccarello said before the show, recalling his early lockdown decision to leave the Paris schedule. “I knew that once the pandemic would become a little bit better, it would be impossible to totally change this way of showing. It’s part of fashion.” Picking up where he left off – the autumn-winter 2020 latex collection that hardly needs a recap – Vaccarello put his softer, more pragmatic collections of the lockdown period behind him, and forged ahead with the look he believes in for a 2020s wardrobe. “For me, this collection is the continuation of the latex collection: it’s a style that I want to establish,” he told Vogue. “The latex collection was a liberating collection for me. I was feeling free. I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone else about what I was able to do for Saint Laurent. I relate that collection to the Scandal collection of Paloma.” The collection in question was Yves Saint Laurent’s 1971 tribute to Paloma Picasso, who wasn’t one of his most famous muses but one of the most influential ones, nonetheless. “Pierre Bergé told me that Paloma Picasso was the only woman who inspired a collection for Yves Saint Laurent,” Vaccarello said. We tend to always talk about Betty Catroux and Catherine Deneuve, but Paloma was the only one who really changed Yves Saint Laurent’s perception of fashion, Vaccarello explained. “Before, he was really into couture – really into this cute, very perfect silhouette – and when he met her, with her huge red lips, dressed in vintage, she was really new for him. It changed his own style. In my mind, I want to have the same change after the pandemic.” His instinct made for a spirited collection that amplified the signatures of Picasso’s look. The shoulders of jackets broadened into rigorous silhouettes, the necklines and slits of dresses grew closer together, and leggings and jumpsuits – some wrapped glamorously around the contours of the body – proposed a new take on eveningwear for the post-pandemic decade. Curiously, in a scantily clad season that’s coined the “new sexy”, Vaccarello’s collection was decidedly covered-up for a Vaccarello collection – something the skin-tightness of it all balanced back into sensual territory. What does a designer known for legs and miniskirts make of this “new sexy”? “I hate the sexy I see. It looks like the sexy I did 10 years ago,” he quipped. “Everyone can do sexy, but for me it’s about assuming what you are, not trying to seduce others. It’s being confident in what you are. Paloma is very sexual but not the kind of woman you want to mess with. You wouldn’t bother her in the street, for example.” Perhaps that was Vaccarello’s 1990s sensibility talking: the mindset of a boy raised on the sophistication of supermodels, immaculate music videos, and an approach to sex that felt a lot more intelligent than that of the 2000s, a decade many designers are referencing this season.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Fichu Pour Fichu. Marine Serre SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

For the spring-summer 2022 collection entitled Fichu pour Fichu (“We are doomed”), Marine Serre pushes further her eco-conscious approach to fashion. Inspired by the ongoing state of flux the world is experiencing, the line-up focuses on reconnecting with others and our surroundings, and leading a life without the feeling of loneliness that comes with isolation. Accompanying the sustainable pieces, this season Serre delved even deeper into the power of film with Ostal24, a 13-minute short that transports us through interior and exterior worlds that could be situated somewhere in the past, present, or future. The title Ostal24, which means “house” in Occitan – a historical language spoken in Serre’s native region – grew from her belief that through sincere engagement with our primal instincts, we can create a sense of home wherever life takes us. “The most important thing for me is what people feel when they see Ostal24 rather than what they think,” Serre says. “I want people to feel the beauty and the simplicity of being together and finding joy in cooking, eating, dancing, yoga. And at the same time recognize that everyday we make choices that have an impact, so how can we be more responsible in the decisions we make? Fashion is about more than draping fabric and making a profit, it can be a place where we are free to take meaningful action.” And yes – those looks are made of upcycled towels and discloth!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Instinct. Burberry SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Riccardo Tisci appeared on the cover of last week’s edition of the magazine DSection embracing a deer and sporting droopy Bambi ears like those worn by models on his digital Burberry runway yesterday. He dedicated the collection to his beloved mother, who passed away in late August at the age of 93. “We are born from animals. We have an animal instinct that’s highly strung when we are feeling happiness or depression or sadness,” Tisci said on a video call from Milan. He wanted to give his models the same emotional expression that animals convey through their ears. “Instinct” is the magic word for Tisci at this stage in his Burberry tenure. In his last men’s collection he broke the confinements he had, to some degree, experienced, working within the brand’s highly defined heritage, and did what he does best: Riccardo Tisci. In his spring-summer 2022, things felt a bit mild. The film saw models proceeding through rooms that represented Tisci’s natural elements at Burberry: speakers for music, wind for outdoors, rave for youth, and glitter for the zhuzh. A few looks into the transfigured trench coats that opened the show – long at the front, cropped at the back – the camera panned around a model to reveal her naked derriere. With the trench territory covered, he investigated the sportswear he’s been adamant to introduce to the business, elevating and refining hoodies with cape structures and hoods that had a couture sensibility about them. Drawing on his premise of instinct, Tisci abstracted animal prints on little lightweight dresses like the butterfly motifs you get “when kids put color between two pages and they open them,” he explained. Along with those Bambi ears, it added a childlike sense of wonderment to the otherwise bold cuts that embody the very personal lines Tisci is now bringing to Burberry.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Happening. Marni SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Francesco Risso‘s spring-summer 2022 fashion show for Marni was actually a happening – which in art terms is defined as an theatrical event, often with elements of dada and surrealism. The name was first used by the American artist Allan Kaprow in the title of his 1959 work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts which took place in 1959 in New York. Happenings typically took place in an environment created within the gallery and involved light, sound, a multitude of sensations and the audience’s participation. To an extent, Risso checked all the points, redefining and expanding the concept with, of course, fashion. In the days leading up to the show, the designer and his team conducted fittings for 400 people. The models got the new spring collection, while the show’s performers and guests wore upcycled cotton separates hand-painted with colorful stripes. Risso grew discouraged by the digital focus of the job during the lockdowns. His idea, he explained, “was about going back to the practice of what we do, which is making clothes for people, one to one.” He said the process was just as significant to him as the final result. But, oh, what a final result. All season, we’ve been waiting for a designer who was up for the hard but necessary work of addressing the last year-and-a-half of pandemic and racial justice reckoning. Who acknowledged the changes the world has gone through in our mutual isolation, and, in turn, changed the way they do things. For the “fashion happening”, Risso invited Dev Hynes for the music; the poet Mykki Blanco did a spoken word performance; the singer Zsela was joined by a heavenly sounding choir. On the program notes, Babak Radboy, who’s known for his work with Telfar Clemens, shared creative direction. The cast had the racial diversity, body inclusivity, and gender fluidity.

The spring collection’s two main motifs were stripes and daisies. Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the most effective. “Stripes are strongly associated with direction, where daisies are new beginnings and resilience; they’re banal concepts,” Risso said. But in a palette of blues and yellows, they weren’t boring. Navigating a spiral seating arrangement before reversing the circle on a central stage, the models wore slinky bias dresses in graphic rugby stripes, color-blocked blazers, Breton stripe ponchos, easy woven caftans, and shaggy cardigans and shawls, one of which was modeled by Risso himself: everyday clothes with a feeling of the hand. And then came the daisies, which felt more eccentric: naively embroidered on signature Marni shapes, intarsia’d on trompe l’oeil knits, and on the striking final look, hand-painted on a floor-length T-shirt dress. “I kept thinking about sports, not because the collection has references to sports in its details, but because of how teams work – that union,” said Risso. “At the end of the day, who is our trainer? It’s our heartbeat, it synchronizes everyone.” As the models circled the crowd at the finale and Szela sang Dev Hynes’s moving original composition “Guide You Home,” the audience erupted in applause. It went on for some time.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Forever Timeless. Zanini SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Marco Zanini launched his brand in early 2019, and he makes no secret of the challenges of being a one-man show building a label from scratch in a city full of industrial behemoths and glitzy events. “I’m looking for support,” he said frankly. “It’s very positive to be above the confusion, but now I’d like someone to put some money in it.” He’s the kind of designer you hope gets the help and structure he needs because he has unwavering taste and an understated but luxurious aesthetic. The Zanini spring-summer 2022 collection is a little less formal than the label’s previous seasons, though all of it is constructed with the same care as usual. Where many of the prints we see on the runways these days are designed on a computer with Photoshop, Zanini created his in collaboration with an artist based in Antwerp. There’s a lush chrysanthemum print on a cotton shirtdress and a finely rendered watercolor print of baskets on a silk one. Tailoring is a Zanini calling card, only here he gave it a more carefree attitude. Cotton shorts made for an unexpected but believable accompaniment for an ivory silk jacquard blazer, and a Breton shirt in gray with plum stripes gave a chrysanthemum-print jacket and army green silk pants a chilled-out vibe. Other collectable knits included ribbed linen Henleys and tanks for layering, and cashmere in both shrunken cardigans and a blanket-size cocoon. It’s a wardrobe to dream about (and invest in).

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.