Stages Of Life. Area SS23

February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Lately, Area becomes more and more experimental, transforming its “occasion-wear” into something conceptual, even metaphysical (through a slightly ironical, tongue-in-cheek lens). The noise of flies buzzed through speakers as the guests waited for the spring-summer 2023 show to start. The invitation came in the shape of two, fake squishy bananas. “This season is all about fruits,” Piotrek Panszczyk said before the show at his studio in Chinatown. “The beauty of them, but also the symbolic meaning of them. In a way you can think of fruit as something fresh, a new start, but when it starts decaying, it becomes about mortality.” And so the show opened with sculptural banana looks: a cropped top and a skirt made of oversized banana sculptures, followed by a jacket with banana sculptures surrounding the bodice, followed by a strapless denim mini dress, all in tie-dye shades of pink, purple, and white which were meant to mimic the colors of bruised, rotten fruit. The next dress was made of small, individually draped and formed banana shapes that were joined together in the style of a bandage-dress, hugging the body and leaving nothing to the imagination. While there were many sculptural pieces on the runway, it was indeed in the softness that Panszczyk found the most success.“This season there’s way more fluidity, we’re all about construction. We really started lightening it up, using laces, and fluid fabrics. Example: the red strapless empire waist flocked tulle gown with black lurex whose pattern brought to mind squashed grapes when wine is being made. Another highlight of the show was its diverse cast, which featured a few older models as well as a few “curvier” models, the latter wearing tailored gowns which hugged their bodies in the right places. “Aging also comes with beauty,” Panszczyk explained. “And I think for us it’s always important to showcase these different stages of life.” He added, “for us, it’s really about balancing these ideas, like how can it be about really, truly fantasy? And how can you evoke this kind of energy in real life?”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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To Nature. Uma Wang SS23

February 7, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Sometimes, you’ve got a fashion collection that is pure poetry. Uma Wang‘s spring-summer 2023 is one of these rare examples. Her line-up is an ode to nature – but not in a cliché way. The neutral palette conjured the serene eternity of desert sands; coffee dye gave an earthiness to some of the materials. The second look was created from one length of a metal and cotton fabric that resembles tree bark. Sheer nylon was used, said Wang, to evoke “a white cloud in the sky.” Just as Wang harnessed different natural elements – sky and earth, for example – so she combined menswear touches with soft draping, flou, and structure. This collection read as mature as opposed to trendy because of the clarity of Wang’s vision, which is largely derived from her passion for materials. The designer works closely with Italian mills creating incredible, often textural fabrics, which help to inform the silhouettes. In general, Wang’s stories are like collages of different stories that somehow make sense when connected. For spring, Wang borrowed from the world of interiors a frayed cotton meant to evoke a woman wearing something she found at an antiques market. There was an ’80s boldness to menswear-inspired coats, jackets, and sleeves, for example. The square-toe shoes were inspired by those worn during the Ming Dynasty. The styling of the necklaces and hats tripped up a narrative that otherwise felt like a true fusion of elements relating to culture, history, and gender forged into something new. In her show notes, Wang wrote of nature existing beyond boundary and taboo; she associates wilderness with freedom. The humility one feels in the face of the natural world finds a parallel in the designer’s respect for textiles and craft, but otherwise this collection, which showcased Wang’s formidable talents, celebrated the power of a woman, giving her the option to stand strong, proud, free with the sturdiness of a tree or the gentleness of a cloud.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Heroes. Marc Jacobs SS23

February 4, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Marc Jacobs held his latest fashion show in the Park Avenue Armony, a week before New York Fashion Week officially begins. Even if the king of New York’s fashion scene doesn’t return to the event, the entire outing felt very New York. The giant room was pitch dark and almost empty, save for a single row of chairs and spotlights illuminating the space in front of them. A solo violinist, Jennifer Koh, played a portion of Philip Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach.” Jacobs gave the collection a name – “Heroes” – and included a Vivienne Westwood quote in his show notes more earnest than irreverent: “Fashion is life-enhancing, and I think it’s a lovely, generous thing to do for other people.” Westwood died in December at 81, and when she passed Jacobs posted a black-and-white photo of the legendary designer as a young woman. In it, she wears her bleached blond hair in spikes and a button-down stenciled with the words: “Be reasonable, demand the impossible.” At the time, Jacobs wrote that he was heartbroken, saying, “I continue to learn from your words, and all of your extraordinary creations.” This collection was an emotionally charged homage to the “godmother of punk,” from the top of the models’ peroxide wigs to the bottom of their platform shoes. Naomi Campbell, you’ll remember, famously fell in her platforms at Westwood’s autumn 1993 show. But Jacobs has learned much more than that from the late designer. The “tit tops” of Westwood’s Pirate collection circa 1981, in which she twisted t-shirt fabric into nipples, were reinterpreted as casual knit leotards and nipped and tucked sheath dresses. Here, the romantic silhouettes that Westwood lifted from old master paintings, with their bustles and bustiers, got a dressing down in military surplus, heavy on the cargo pockets. Jacobs recreated her signature volumes by turning a shirt into a skirt and tying its sleeves in the back, or by dressing models in upside-down jackets, hems dramatically framing their faces. A few of the models walked past with their arms crossed, pantomiming Westwood’s defiant audacity. Long-line coats with the geometric patchworks of quilts may not be of direct lineage, but their DIY-ness chimes with Westwood’s punk ethos. They’re special pieces, not precious because of the materials Jacobs used – they actually looked quite humble – but because of their remarkable handwork. Tinged with sadness, but also with moving, creative expression, this collection proves again that no one does it like Marc.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Floatiness. Fendi SS23 Couture

January 28, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“I want to do lightness because for me, couture always seems quite staid and heavy,” Kim Jones said regarding his Fendi spring-summer 2023 couture offering. “I wanted a floatiness. Elegant but youthful.” Jones also added that this collection was “a continuation” of his autumn couture, and a response to Fendi clients’ requests for evening dresses. What he offered was a discreetly modernized redefinion of statuesque goddess-dressing: slim silhouettes, in pale evanescent colors, 1930s style. You could barely tell that some of the silvered dresses which had overlaid printed lace-patterns, a bit like tablecloths, were leather, decorated with scanned-in prints. Or the glinting “chain-mail” gloves. “I wanted to really work with the couture techniques,” Jones said. “What they can do now is so advanced.” The concept of the swoops and drapery lightly referenced an archival Karl Lagerfeld for Fendi silk dress that Jones had studied; a glancing echo of the classical staturary of Rome, of course. Jones layered it over delicate constructs of lace-edged silk bras and slips. It’s all very pretty. But while Jones’s work blooms and evolves at Dior Men, his Fendi’s womenswear feels too reserved and steeped in comfort zone.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Clubbing. Valentino SS23 Couture

January 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

This season, Pierpaolo Piccioli took Valentino haute couture to the club, leaving behind the highly elevated feeling he so succesfully conveyed in the last couple or years. His venue, at night, was a famous Paris joint under the Pont Alexandre. His point about standing for inclusivity is definitely intended to be heard by the wider world of young people. “Of course, I love it that haute couture is about the magic of impossible challenges,” he began. “Of course it’s about craft, and we talk about that all the time, but I also love it when couture feels effortless. It’s all about the feeling of having something for yourself. It’s kind of democratic in a way, in the idea of showing this freedom of being whoever you want to be.” On his inspiration board were photos of clubs in the 1980s, ranging from Studio 54 to London’s New Romantic Blitz Club, the Club For Heroes one-nighter and the Taboo, hosted by the outrageous performance artist Leigh Bowery. What all these scenes, underground or jet-set, had in common was that they were hotbeds for generating fashion and havens for what used to be called ‘gender-bending.’ “The difference was that then, it was behind closed doors. Now it’s something we have for life. It’s today’s way of freedom,” he argued. “So I love the idea of a club, but it’s a club for today. Thinking of inclusivity as welcoming people for who they are, and who they want to be. So it’s invitation to be free to be what you want ro be, mixed with the codes of Mr. Valentino in the ’80s.” Still, haute couture formalities were observed in a way – Valentino’s creatures of the night weren’t presented as a wild crowd of dancers, but as models walking on a runway, haute couture standards of solemnity preserved. What emerged from the darkness were pops of color, dark Parisian sexy black transparent lingerie dresses, and many varieties of strategic body-exposure. In 89 looks, Piccioli put forward individualism in tiny pelmet skirts or cutaway bodysuits implanted with giant bows worn with floor-trailing capes, a dress with cutout polkadot portholes, and white shirts and ties styled with micro-minis (one with a dramatic red sequin trench). In overall this wasn’t my favorite Valentino couture moment, but Piccioli definitely had some working on it.