Future Vintage. Ralph Lauren SS24

September 10, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

There’s something so reassuring about a Ralph Lauren collection. It’s really good to see the designer back on the New York Fashion Week schedule, as he brings much-needed substance to the table. For spring-summer 2024, the all-time American designer looks back at his 2000s aesthetic (especially the gorgeous spring-summer 2003 collection which resonates so well with fashion in 2023) and delivers a line-up of what I call future vintage, clothes that will become heirlooms. The offering started with that most American of fabrics, denim, only Lauren treated it in the most elevated of ways; lined with chiffon and tulle and burnt out into devorés, it was then over-embroidered with sequins and beads. It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to liken these pieces to couture, even if the silhouettes he was working with were straightforward jackets and cargo pants. From there, the show moved onto a series of black and gold looks and a chance to play with house codes like the RL logo, which was picked out on the torso of a clingy beaded black dress, and the military jacket, which got belted over silky pants and strappy heels. Christy Turlington’s show-closing gold lamé one-shoulder gown was a knockout. A glamorous, NYFW moment.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Remixing The Codes. Helmut Lang SS24

September 10, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Peter Do always had a Helmut Lang-like sensibility; I even hinted he could be a great choice for the brand exactly one year ago. Just like Lang did in the 1990s and early 2000s, Do creates at his eponymous label everyday uniforms for a hectic, urban life. He also has a similar take on minimalism, which he polished up under Phoebe Philo at Céline (who, by the way, often referenced Lang’s style-codes). Unexpectedly however, Do’s debut collection for the Fast Retailing-owned brand didn’t deliver. It was yet another remix of Helmut’s signatures, grit-free, nicely packed and smoothed up for a contemporary customer (who, if truly loves Helmut Lang, will simply buy the real deal on a resale platform). In Peter’s painfully straightforward spring-summer 2024, there were many references to the Austrian designer’s milestone moves. The yellow taxi cab print that appeared in many fabrications was a callback to Lang’s then-agenda setting move of advertising on the top of taxi cabs, a format once considered too pedestrian for high fashion by his designer peers. It eventually gave Do’s collaborator, the author Ocean Vuong, a theme for the poem that was printed on the concrete floor of the venue, calling back to the Jenny Holzer installation that was the centerpiece in the original Helmut Lang store at 80 Greene Street. There was also a take on Lang’s tailoring: the flat-front trousers, the androgynous, almost but not quite plain jackets, the crombie coats. The seat belt straps that criss cross the torso and pass through belt loops are straight out of the archive, a reference to the underground world of bondage clubs, but remove them and the suits will pass in the straight world. Helmut Lang’s style captured the essence of a specific time, it was an antidote for over-the-topness, a comfort-place for artists and people who were far-too-cool-for-fashion. Reviving the classics to death just makes no sense.

People Are Flowers. Rodarte SS24

September 8, 2023September 9, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

This New York Fashion Week needs some time to warm up. A swarm of publicity events that could have been an e-mail and a sea of uninspiring presentations feel like a false start. Kate and Laura Mulleavy‘s Rodarte collection – no runway this time – is an emphasis of all things this brand stands for. “We were thinking about clothing as gardens and flowers. The idea of people blooming, in a way, but also, how do we use the history of textures and color from Rodarte and celebrate that in a collection about gardens?” Flowers for spring aren’t ground-breaking, but the Mulleavy’s served a captivating take on the theme. The opening gown, with its bodice made from layers of purple and black lace and beaded embroidery at the bust, a sweeping voluminous skirt made from strips of organza in gradient shades of purple, and a matching capelet in the same organza ruffles, set the tone. The pack of the designers’ favourite actresses – from Milla Jovovich and her daughter Ever to The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri – elevated all that flower craze into something more sophisticated. The big standouts were the ruffle dresses that harked back to Rodarte’s first collection in 2006. The vertical ruffles were pieced together from different colors of silk organza, silk chiffon, silk charmeuse, and silk georgette and were decorated with fabric rosettes. Silk bias-cut slip dresses, sometimes with little sleeves, had a 1930s feel; but it was their color palette – bright iris, peony yellow, emerald green – that made them more readily identifiable as dresses of our current era. “Even if we’re referencing an era, I don’t think that the overall coming-together of a collection ever feels vintage,” Kate explained. “So even if it’s a vibe or a cut that you could align with a time period somehow by the color or the construction, it feels fresh.”

Twisted Nostalgia. LRS SS24

July 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

At the age of 18, Raul Solis packed his bags and moved from the West Coast to New York. His coming of age coincided with the rise of the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Rapture, who played at small venues to beer-fueled crowds at the time. For LRS‘s spring-summer 2024, Solis indulged in what he called “twisted nostalgia” by referencing the early 2000s and its early ’60s teddy-boy roots in a collection that was indie – without the sleaze – both in aesthetics and origin. It’s no small feat to keep a self-owned business afloat. Elements of the collection – the melted Mickey Mouse figures, a pair of pants made from old American flags – speak to the world we’re living in today, one where the dream coexists with nightmares. The crystal blood drops on slim-cut pants and jackets reference the struggle but not in a macabre way. But LRS also offers more relatable, day-to-day pieces. The designer cut a striped turtleneck to expose just the right slice of midriff and accessorized a pair of low-cut rocker pants with an extra-big belt buckle and a trailing skinny scarf. A mini kilt looked anything but uniform, and wide-cut jeans were made to rave. All of these pieces conveyed a narrative without being tricky.

Artist At Home. S.S. Daley SS24

July 11, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

The theme of artist at home has sprung dozens of stories where a visionary creates a vividly alive environment that becomes not only their studio, but a “total artwork” (Germans have a term for it: Gesamtkunstwerk). History of art – especially the British one – has plenty of examples of such romances between creatives and their surroundings. Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill. Sir John Soane’s home-turned-museum. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Charleston, which became a bucolic residency spot for the Bloomsbury Group. For his spring-summer 2024 collection, Steven Stokey-Daley centres around the duality of ceremony and practice, following the life and home of an artist. Harry Styles’ favourite designer began his research by studying the lives of British painters Lucien Freud and David Hockney in their working environments, taking a look back at British public school dress while examining the shifts in sexual identity in the early 1900s. All that sounds distinctly S.S. Daley. The new season offering is a neat continuation of Steven’s style vocabulary: clean-cut suiting is paired with pleated shorts, blooming hydrangea embroideries decorate striped workwear sets, oversized wool knits are canvases for charming dachshund puppies (Hockney’s favorite breed, as well as mine!) and ducks. Some of the shirts come in still life fruit bowl print, which reminisces the ever-evolving European artistic tradition. Multi-pocketed, waterproof coats are nonchalantly splashed with paint (you just always splatter your favorite clothes while painting!), echoing the collection’s idea of merging the domestic intimacy with the sacred act of creating and expressing your own, untamed, highly-personal thing.