Upside-Down. Dries Van noten SS24

September 28, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“Familiar-unfamiliar and unfamiliar-familiar” was how Dries Van Noten described his starting point for spring-summer 2024. “Things that you really know but done in a completely upside-down, inside-out, special, strange way.” The Belgian designer took his all-time favorite wardrobe staples that have always been present at his brand, and looked at them through a new, twisted perspective. The collection came from traditional menswear – shirt stripes and khakis, with some denim tossed in the mix and lawn sports like tennis, cricket, and rugby. Van Noten made those familiars unfamiliar by adding a feminine touch. For the first exit, shirt stripes turned up on a bralette worn with a generously cut camel coat and knee-length shorts. On other looks, khaki cargo pants morphed into a long wrap skirt, and an enlarged schoolboy blazer was paired with a shirtdress covered in delicate see-through paillettes. Among the sports references, the rugby stripes were especially distinctive; he cut them into polo shirts that wrapped around the torso and T-shirts that slouched off one shoulder, as real as it gets but still unexpected. Backstage Van Noten said the collection was a companion piece to his men’s show in June, where he set out to redefine masculinity for a younger generation – cue the sequined basketball shorts. Women have been flirting with menswear essentials for decades, so it’s harder to surprise in this direction, but there were plenty of delights.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Spiritual. Niccolò Pasqualetti SS24

September 28, 2023September 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Sometimes, a small, tightly-edited collection might be worth more meanings than an entire, budget-proof fashion spectacle. “In the white space, you see things for what they are, and you forget where they came from,” says the enigmatically vivid press-note for Niccolò Pasqualetti’s spring-summer 2024 collection. The white space might refer to the white cube venue the young designer chose for his fashion show in Paris. But it might also allude to a more metaphorical, imaginary space. In such a place, one thing easily changes into another. “A simple evening dress, a classic Italian suit, caught in a moment of transmutation, evaporates into a cloud. Each detail, the buttons, the zippers, the stitching are disturbed by this process. Yet still some recognizable pieces pierce through the fog, only slightly obfuscated by it.” Garment distortions are Pasqualetti’s key signatures; drawstrings, secreted in garments, are able to totally transform the silhouette. Take the free-flowing cape that cinches itself to form a column. Like protective clothing, when pulled tightly, it forms a seal with the body. These fastenings reappear, in the shoes, and in the hoods which hide within the collars of jackets. In Pasqualetti’s poetic world, there is no night and day, as everything happens at the same time. Pockets multiply across the collection giving each look a newly practical dimension regardless of the occasion. Then, laid on top of everything, silver jewellery that resembles out-of-this-world, spiritual amulets. Yes, that might the right word to describe this collection: spiritual.

Styling Samuel Drira
Photography Cécile Bortoletti
Art direction Sybille Walter
Hair Mayu Morimoto
Makeup Asami Kawai
Casting Chouaïb Arif
Words Rhys Evans

Method. Saint Laurent SS24

September 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

The spring-summer 2024 Saint Laurent collection, presented on a marble runway against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower last night, gave a mood. But did it deliver truly great, contemporary-looking clothes? Anthony Vaccarello has found a new formula for his job at the Parisian maison: find a theme from Yves Saint Laurent’s vast archive, refresh it for the eyes of a contemporary customer, and consistently stick to it for the entire season. This sort of repetition-technique delivers strikingly coherent collections that sell well – and give YSL’s legacy a new relevance. But I felt that something started to crack in Vaccarello’s “genius” method this season.

The new collection was inspired by pioneering women through the lens of Saint Laurent’s late 1960s Saharienne look. Vaccarello looked to the likes of Amelia Earhart and Adrienne Bolland, who infiltrated “domains once considered exclusively male.” Earhart’s influence was perhaps the most evident, with aviation themes filtering through in aviator sunglasses and head-caps. Formula 1-style racing dress also came to the fore, with utility-style jumpsuits sitting sharp on the shoulders, slouching at the leg and belted tightly at the waist for shape. As the models progressed through the stage, service jackets and cargo trousers gave way to billowing, pleated gowns, mesh tops and glittering mini dresses in khaki, beige, burgundy and deep blue. Of course, it all looked super-chic and refined on the moody runway – an entire production, actually – but in the end, I thought the clothes had a rather dated outlook at what successful, contemporary women want to dress like. I doubt they want to be invested so much in 20th century nostalgia.

Beauty That Ages. Hodakova SS24

September 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s interesting to see how the new generation of brands in Paris reinterpret Martin Margiela. Vaquera nods to the grittiness and rawness of the famously anonymous designer; Marie Adam-Leenaerdt references the conceptual aspect of the garment. Just like the legendary Belgian visionary, Stockholm-based Ellen Hodakova Larsson has a similar interest in the daily objects and upcyling, which she revisits through artisan techniques. Hodakova‘s spring-summer 2024 was created from selected with great care fabrics that she found in warehouses, tag sales, and secondhand shops; as such, they don’t have the happy, shiny newness of something wrapped in plastic or right off the rack. Plus Larsson chooses to work with not only easily translatable finds, like suiting, but also slightly ickier ones: nylons and brassieres. The designer specifically thought about the beauty ideal in this lineup. Her flower dresses were a reaction to filters and body modifications that seek to trap youth in amber. In response, Larsson said she “captured beauty – beauty that actually ages.” A dried flower might not have the same allure as a fresh-cut one, “but it still has a beauty.” These flora were preserved in silicone and individually, lovingly, hand-sewn onto linen. Then, the designer used lipstick this season as a metaphor for “perfection and desire,” she said. The counterpart to those tubes of rouge were ink-filled ballpoint pens. This collection included many greatest hits, all thoughtfully considered. The plastic used for the finale dress was repurposed from last season’s version, for example. New for the season was menswear, which, though twisted, had a classical feel, as did a lovely dress made of vintage tablecloths that was an actual pillar of minimalism. It was a sartorial equivalent of a blank page, much like a white shirt can be. A plain button-down paired with a spiky pencil skirt took on a kind of note-to-self function, showing the audience that these special pieces can be grounded with wardrobe staples.

Paris. Peter Do SS24

September 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

New York’s Peter Do delivered a refined and strong collection for his Paris Fashion Week debut. This was a much-needed distance between his eponymous brand’s abilities and the designer’s stint at Helmut Lang – which had some very mixed reviews at the beginning of September. “I want to make grown-up clothes,” Do said backstage yesterday. To start, what that meant here was you didn’t see the silly short-shorts that were for instance all over the Milan runways. The designer cut his blazers into horizontal sections, placing a band of silk twill lining with subtle logo details between a top and bottom in summer-weight wool. Some jackets were tucked into pants with a similar treatment. If that’s a runway styling trick that may not make it in the real world, many other pieces have good odds, like the jackets cropped at the midriff and the blazer vests with exaggerated shoulders. Then there were great looking trousers. The most ambitious were the pairs with vertical slices down the front that revealed a bold lash of red underneath. On the softer side, a pair of halter dresses ad provocative sheer insets in front and elegant draped backs. The draping and twisting felt new for Do, an expansion of his vocabulary. Sprinkled in were pieces from his Banana Republic collaboration, due in stores on October 10. The khaki trench with a removable shearling collar and a two-in-one chunky ribbed sweater added a more easy-going vibe to the show. Just don’t call them casual. There’s nothing casual about Do’s drive.