Summer is coming so, so soon! How about a timeless Prada wardrobe reimagined, in hypercolor? Energetic and kinetic color – joyous, uplifting, free. Emerald, orange, vermillion, yellow – contrast with graphic black and white and soft greys. Motifs are direct – geometric stripes and bold checks, simple and linear. Tactile and precious silks, fine cashmeres, leather and kid mohair are used for relaxed styles expressive of summer – silk pyjamas, full skirts, abbreviated shorts and bra tops. Bodies are streamlined, dynamic, moving freely. Accessories are modern Prada archetypes – the Triangle handbag, baseball caps, bucket hats – recolored, therefore reenergized.
It’s quite impossinle to move past the cat hats in KNWLS autumn-winter 2022 collection. The result of many years of perfecting, the hats nod to Harajuku and raver aesthetics, pulled right from the pages of Fruits magazine, and Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault‘s own club kid lifestyle. Once you get past the immediate and delicious pang of the foxy little toppers, you’ll find an expanded KNWLS multiverse. As a brand beloved by Dua Lipa, Emma Corrin and Julia Fox, KNWLS has become synonymous with stringy sexy corsets and attenuated shoes and bags. Knowles and Arsenault can deliver that in spades – see their well-engineered ice blue bodysuit and platform shoes this season – but rather than just do what they do, they want to do more. Newness abounds in textural, chunky knits, with clubby fringe fraying off and cropped space-dyed wrap cardigans. Leg warmers are belted just below the knee and flare out in shearlings and knits. The proportion play is almost cartoonish – like a video game vixen, the KNWLS silhouette knows exactly where to exaggerate and where to cinch, contrasting gigantic fluff-coats with slender flared leggings, and maniacally slender waxed leather corsets with the lowest of low-rise pants. Each piece is tailored precisely – these aren’t just fun sexy clothes without craft – adding to the sharpness and the spunk of the look. The real story, though, is about movement. Flutter hems would seem like anathema to the KNWLS look, but here, Knowles and Arsenault have built a minidress with dozens of inset panels so the fabric dances around the model’s legs in a video by Jordan Hemingway. It’s sexy and innocent in an almost terrifying way. But that’s the KNWLS look – as per their press release, this season, it’s equal parts Suspiria and Nine Inch Nails, riffing on that tension of beautiful, scary, corporeal horror. Don’t get the wrong impression, though. Knowles and Arsenault are lovers, not fighters. “We just wanted to make things that are precious to us,” she says. The beauty in danger is their sweet spot – and the cat hats just top it all off nicely.
Going for an all-pastel colour palette might be lethal. But the Rodarte sisters manage to keep the saccharine sweetness not that naive in their autumn-winter 2022 collection. The ultra-feminine line-up is heavily inspired by ballet and ballerinas’ ensembles, and it makes so much sense: Kate and Laura Mulleavy created Natalie Portman’s costumes for Darren Aronofsky’s terrific Black Swan back in 2010. But right now, there’s nothing evil about the Rodarte Swan Queens. Over 2020 and 2021, their innate sense of woman-ness has led the Los Angeles-based designers to swing their pendulum into collections about optimism, comfort, sweetness, sparkle, and motion. What they’ve landed on here is equilibrium. In pastel imagery by Daria Kobayashi Rich, with set design by Tina Pappas and Adam Siegel and floral design by Joseph Free, the Mulleavys have found the happiest, tenderest of marriages between the tiered cascades of blush tulle worn by Lili Reinhart, the crisp pink suiting donned by Janicza Bravo, the patterned tea dress on Natasha Lyonne, and the jeans and legwarmers on Laura Love. “The fantasy of what we want to do and create is the number one driving force,” demurs Kate, but when the Rodarte fantasy intersects so potently with reality as it does here, the designers’ honestness can feel more relevant than ever. In between, they make pit stops in bright fuchsia and teal, resurrecting their famous grunge-y spiderweb knits from autumn-winter 2008. “They are practical in a sense that they mold to your body and impractical in the most amazing way,” says Kate of the signature knits. The original versions – mini tube dresses and long cardigans – are back to the sure joy of many fans, but the sisters aren’t just playing to archive-mania. They’ve also made bustiers and capes in the knit, the latter worn by Lana Condor in a blue look trimmed in feathers. “The cape,” Kate says, “is practical and whimsical.” And sometimes you need fashion to be just that, equal parts a slip dress and a fantasia. It’s that kind magic that makes so many celebrities show up for a Rodarte photoshoot: the girls who get it, get it.
For 20 years Ashish Gupta has created joyously ironic garments that are highly compatible with pleasure. And by developing his pieces in sequins via Indian handcraft rather than pixels via code, these garments command real-life attention on multiple levels. For autumn-winter 2022, Ashish is offering what appears to be uncomplicatedly oomphy womenswear. Halston-reminiscent bias cut slip and halter dresses, the Edith Head–evocative goddess gown shot by the fireplace, and the vaguely-Valentino ruffle mini are as exacting to craft as they are apparently enchanting to wear. Sprinkled around these conventionally glamorous shapes worn unconventionally were denim, separates, and swimwear, plus a powerful fringe bomber jacket that lent this collection enough versatility be worn anywhere from evening reception to all-night rave. With Ashish, the real decoding lies in the pattern. This season he went back to one of his most enduring inspirations, the intersection of modes of dress he observed on the street in Delhi before he set off for London and Central Saint Martins. “In winter you will see Indian ladies in their silk saris, and then putting over a little Fair Isle cardigan – saris meet Scotland.” This became the launchpad for a seasonal in-sequin-remix of ikats, stripes, argyles, and houndstooth (some cherry-strewn) that spoke directly to the spirit of cross-cultural relish that is central to Ashish. That fireplace dress was cut to evoke the sari as much as it was to conjure mid-century glamour. A sequin cricket jumper spoke of another shared language, and a Chanel-template jacket and mini dress were emphatically anti-monochromatic. While Ashish talked about these elements “clashing together,” that clashing was anything but antagonistic; instead it proved the source for some sparklingly fresh and fun fashion harmonies.
Dimitra Petsa’s sensual clothing is all about the female form, and rather than change her ideas for the seasons of the year, she changes her design tack to better suit the seasons of a woman’s life. Pregnancy and all its stages was her inspiration for autumn-winter 2022, specifically the myth of Persephone and the relationship between a mother and daughter. “When she was with her mother, Demeter, she was a daughter,” Petsa says, “but when she was in the underworld she was a queen.” That spooky regality plays well with Di Petsa’s aesthetic, her sensual sirens slinking about in wet look dresses and revealing corsetry. But for every exciting aesthetic note Petsa hits she is also a designer who truly considers and cares for a woman’s body. This season the vast majority of the collection is designed to be worn during and after pregnancy. Corsets and trousers unclasp at the nipple and the waist to allow for breastfeeding or a growing mid-section, and most tops are structured to work for Hot Girl Summer or New Mom Spring, with straps, folds, and drapery built in to work for breastfeeding. “I am so interested in the way a woman’s body inflates and deflates, I really wanted to have clothes that accommodate these changes,” she says. But for every smart and gracious choice she makes to accommodate a woman’s life, she is also thinking about the environment and protecting traditions. Her materials are mostly dead stock or recycled and she engaged Greece’s oldest pleating studio to make a new kind of long slinky Fortuny pleat à la Petsa. For a designer with such a specific taste, her collection has the potential to break boundaries about what clothing can do and how it should be made. Rihanna, who has us in awe with her revolutionary pregnancy style since January, should definitely go for one of Petsa’s designs during her due date!
Design & Culture by Ed 