Culture About Clothing. Prada SS24

September 22, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Until Prada‘s show yesterday, I feel like I’ve been in a coma this fashion month (maybe for a few very rare exceptions). Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons proved they are in their top game with the spring-summer 2024 collection, an offering charged with so much feeling, meaning and intelligence. As Miuccia said, it’s an ode to “culture about clothing“. Perhaps something that’s on verge of extinction in times of clothes made for Instagram and TikTok. This was also a very earnest line-up focused on clothes. “I got tired talking about ideas – let’s talk about clothes.” Aren’t all runway shows about clothes? Well, yes, but as Raf Simons went on to explain, “craft isn’t something that gets talked about a lot at Prada, at least not as much as at other houses. We wanted to show what we could do.” It wasn’t a matter of how many hours it took to embroider this and how many petites mains were involved in making that. “That’s irrelevant,” he said with a wave of his hand. “The figuring out if it can be done” was the part that got him and Prada going. Two techniques, in particular, got special mention from Simons. The first was the printed fringe they used on floral shirts that gave the individual blooms a shifting depth. And the second was the long skeins of metal fringe used for skirts “built like jewelry.” They’re conversation starters, for sure. But that’s just the beginning of this delightful menu.

Like the gritty men’s spring show, the foundation here was a tailored silhouette: broad-shoulder shacket (with the cuffs of a shirt and the lapels of a jacket) tucked into the belted waistband of high-rise shorts or front-pleat, tapering-to-the-ankle pants. Some of these odd suits were swathed in sheer printed scarves that the show notes described as “fragments of dresses.” Their ethereality provided a link to the collection’s other key shape, sleeveless shifts with 1960s-via-the-’90s lines made from organza and gazar of such gossamer fineness they seemed to float down the runway. A couple of other things that got people talking: the already-worn-in barn jackets (why not wear one over a Jazz Age flapper dress?) and the hand-carved mythological-man clasps adorning evening bags that reproduced a shape first designed in 1913 by Prada’s grandfather, who traveled the world picking up unique baubles like those carvings. These bags are heirlooms in the making.

This collection was charged with one more, extremely crucial factor. Fabio Zambernardi, the design director of Prada and Miu Miu and Miuccia’s closest collaborator who resigned this year after three decades at the company, joined the designers for a bow, doffing his cap, embracing them both, and inspiring a standing ovation in the process. Two questions emerge: how will Prada (and Miu Miu) look without Fabio’s input? And where is he headed next?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Land Girls. Max Mara SS24

September 22, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

This season, we see designers reflecting on global socio-economic unrest by looking back at the war-time moments of early 20th century. That certainly happened too at Ian Griffiths‘ Max Mara. Formed during World War I and mobilized anew for World War II, the Women’s Land Army recruited up to 80,000 females to farm while Britain’s men took up arms. Along with the women working in munitions factories, as nurses, in auxiliary military service, as air raid wardens, and in many other vital non-combatant roles besides, the so-called Land Girls were a vital part of the war effort. By fortunate necessity they also in part catalyzed the emancipatory precedent for women to take their place in the workforce. The Women’s Land Army proved a fertile source of inspiration for Griffiths. The spring-summer 2024 collection that flourished from it was cultivated rather than rustic, but it contained many authentically researched touches while also working wonderfully as a luxuriously utilitarian woman’s wardrobe for now. Bill Cunningham bleu de travail in various garment-dyed shades of cotton was applied to long Monty Don-style work jackets, backless narrow-cut apron-front pencil dresses, double-kneed narrow-cut work pants, and bellows-pocketed and epauletted shirt-skirts and overalls. The palette pivoted to rosy pinks as Griffths pruned his hemlines high with patch-pocketed hot pants under a tunic and a romper. Gorgeous leather-edged canvas gardening bags and bridle-leather binocular cases were tucked under the arms of high-waisted green blousons and washed cotton wide-lapel varieties of Max Mara’s heritage-specialism coat. A wide-gauge knit jersey in green featured irregular cotton patches on one shoulder and the opposite arm in tribute to the source-era’s make-do-and-mend ethos.

It’s a Party. Diesel SS24

September 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

The Diesel show had a lot to say. But in the end, I thought Glenn Martens lost his focus, as the collection went in too many directions and roamed into pure entertainment. But then, Diesel is the go-to brand for hedonism. As the first models came out in his artisanal-industrial shredded and devoré denim outfits, the rain started to slice with gusto through the spotlit area above the huge runway that stretched long into the huge crowd (the free tickets that had been made available online – first to 1,500 students from Milan’s universities, then to all comers – had been snapped up in minutes). Dieselized parodies of old-school movie posters appeared on the garments, which in majority were distressed, acid-washed and double layered. Close fitting ruched jersey or lurex dresses, some of them traced with the external outline of underwear, acted as loose human pastiche of the Oscars statuette. But it also read very Mugler. Destroyed tuxedos, half red carpet and half apocalypse, were the masculine counterpoint. Artisanal pieces included dresses handmade in shredded denim or burned mesh. Several models were caked in grayish ochre mud that matched the tone of their looks. As the last model walked, statuette-esque in a flowing black silk skirt and bralette/scarf combo, the rain suddenly cleared. The finale – and then four more hours of partying – followed.

Nowhere and Everywhere. Etro SS24

September 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

At Etro, three seasons in, Marco De Vincenzo is gradually finding his groove. He starts to navigate around the brand’s vast archive pretty well, with all its troves of rare fabrics and prints. “It’s weird how the imagination brings you to places that somehow you can’t describe,” he said. “The magic of the temples of Angkor Was, a scrap of beautiful brocade from the 18th century… the mind travels through memories and suggestions, mixing them together with no logic or rational hierarchy, and lands instinctively in fabulous places with no name.” He called his spring collection “Nowhere“. De Vincenzo’s audacity and quirk was the glue that kept the collection cohesive, despite its visual jumble of graphics and handsome textures. “But there are no citations, no recognizable attributions, everything comes to life in a magical no-place,” he said. Not afraid to confront challenging shapes (swirling trailing hems sneaking awkwardly around the ankles), unexpected juxtapositions of volumes (XXXL leather blazers worn over equally humongous tent-like strapless circle dresses) and redundant intricacies of construction (an abundance of twisting, knotting, braiding and slicing), De Vincenzo is carving a distinctive niche of cool for Etro, bending its codes into a spirited, vital, visually compelling rendition. The diverse, refined casting, sophisticated grooming and imaginative styling only added to a convincing performance.

Classy. Fendi SS24

September 21, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

At first, I thought that Kim Jones‘ Fendi collection for spring-summer 2024 is mediocre. But when Alexander Fury wrote that this is exactly what the Fendi woman should look like, I had a second glance at it. Jones isn’t reinventing the wheel at the brand, but he’s certainly building a contemporary and very coherent vision of the house and its client. Never fussy, rather understated, but not “just” minimal. Yesterday’s chapter was informed by Karl Lagerfeld’s spring 1999 show for the house and its powerful practicality drew from the Roman women – not least the Fendis and their closest professional cohorts – with whom Jones interacts when serving this brand. His collection was acutely and minutely designed to generate impact through detail, fit and finish. Mannish mohair tailoring (including skirts) was stripped of all visible closures and fittings, then cut with arms designed to be turned up, plus waistbands switched inside out, as if snaffled from a minimalist uomo’s wardrobe. Knitwear blouses, cardigans, skirts and dresses were architecturally entangled with each other against the body, creating striking new forms from conventional ingredients. Rib knits were expanded into a sort of jumbo-jumbo shearling corduroy, slightly flocked, used in a section of oversized work shirts, coats and split skirts. A paper-like, shiny-finish linen was used to fashion a cut-away dress in the same canary yellow that featured in that Lagerfeld collection 24 years ago. Nostalgic, but not daunting; rather, nostalgia that looks towards the future.