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60 Years A Queen. Harris Reed AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

London Fashion Week started on a high note with Harris Reed‘s sophomore collection. The phenomenal autumn-winter 2022 collection, staged at the Saint John the Evangelist Church, was accompanied by Sam Smith’s live performance of Desirée’s “Kissing You”. The musician was surrounded by an elaborate set of paper clouds and models wearing creations made from repurposed fabrics. And here’s another magical detail about Reed’s latest outing: those fabrics came from the home of the heir to the Bussandri upholstery empire, who the designer happened to meet in a café in Northern Italy where his mother lives. “She looked like Donatella Versace’s twin sister. I said, ‘I love your bag.’ She said, ‘Oh, it’s actually from our villa…” And the rest is history. Titled “60 Years a Queen” after Sir Herbert Maxwell’s 1897 book about Queen Victoria, Reed’s collection investigated Victoriana through a “Yas, queen!” club kid lens. “I love how queer culture took on this regal fabulousness,” he explained, gesturing at a gender-nonbinary house model wearing an elongated plush golden suit repurposed from those Bussandri fabrics. As for the rest of the young designer’s silhouettes, they weren’t exemplary of a collection created to explore a specific design idea. Rather, they were DIY-esque explorations of the language of haute couture, and, to a larger degree, testament to the fact that the Harris Reed brand isn’t necessarily about design, anyway. It’s about him as a performative phenomenon rooted in the generational values expressed through his genderless creations and the nonbinary people he puts them in. The message was illustrated in a breastplate spliced from a male and female torso, then pierced with arrows Saint Sebastian-style. But Reed is far from a martyr to his cause. In fact, business is going so well he’s happy he didn’t go down the ready-to-wear route like some of his Central Saint Martins classmates.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Total Elevation. Marc Jacobs SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

New York Fashion Week may officially be over, but that didn’t stop one of it most beloved showmen from unveiling a surprise new collection on Instagram. What’s New York’s fashion scene without Marc Jacobs? The 10 look line-up (which will be available exclusively at Bergdorfs), is essentially a glamorous reworking of Marc’s remarkable autumn-winter 2021, with their grand silhouettes slashed into new skin-baring forms, cargo pants transformed into sweeping statement skirts, and brilliant paillette embellishments wrapped into something stunningly new. The collection came up quite spontaneously. As Jacobs avoided the phygital fashion and virtual shows which largely defined this industry through 2020 and 2021, he instead waited until he had the potential of a live runway to create a collection for. “We were like, ‘we’re not showing until we can do a show the way we show,’” Marc told I-D. “But then, this time, me and Joseph [Carter, from his design team] and Alastair (McKimm, Marc’s collaborator) decided that we were going to make some clothes. And we were going to photograph them.” In result, this new collection appears exceptionally impactful, something of a deeply desirable dystopian fantasy. “We played with the clothes that we made before in order to make other, new clothes,” he explained. So paillette pieces were slashed and wrapped into new apparitions, while a denim jacket draped on the body to become a fabulous sculpted stole. Couture-level deconstruction, something the designer is obsessed with lately. “There was this word that kept going around early on in the process: elevate,” Marc laughed. “‘It has to be elevated, it has to be elevated.’ I looked it up in the dictionary – and to elevate has two definitions. Firstly: to raise or lift something up to a higher position, and secondly: to raise to a more important or impressive level.” He managed to tap into both meanings with this mind-blowing offering, as we can see.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

The Collinas. Collina Strada AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

New York Fashion Week would make no sense without the energy of the city’s new-gen designers who fully embrace inclusivity, community and sustainability. This season, Collina Strada‘s Hillary Taymour showcased her exuberant and lively autumn-winter 2022 collection with a digital presentation, inviting the fashion set to experience its version of The Hills, entitled The Collinas. In the spoof, actor Tommy Dorfman makes her fashion week debut playing a twenty-something moving to New York City for a fashion internship at Collina Strada. Dorfman’s star turn was complemented by a large supporting cast: Rowan Blanchard, Marni’s Francesco Risso, Chloe Wise, Lynette Nylander, Jazzelle Zanaughtti, Ruby Aldridge, and Vogue’s Liana Satenstein – all friends of the brand. While the main character is rather clueless on how to actually do her job properly, she’s lovable with great taste – an aspect her peers can’t get enough of. The campy reality-TV pastiche wasn’t only entertaining and hilarious; it was a great background for Strada’s fabulous pleats, crushed velvet and metallic fabrics. Flashy colours and graphics inspired by 1970s psychedelic rock were mixed with genderless prom dresses and cargo pants made from upcycled materials. This season, Taymour evidentely entered her 2000s phase, and it’s working. Some ideas from spring 2022 carry over, like the Angel-printed tee and meshy layering pieces that have long been a staple. There is a low vibrating cake theme as well – Zanaughtti poses in a pageant ribbon top holding a pink cake; a pair of jeans were dyed using melted sprinkles. Chiffon is shredded to evoke feathers and studio detritus is cut into fringe. The eclecticism of Taymour’s earliest collections persists, and here we are with dozens of wearable and wantable garments that reflect the brand’s spirit.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Elevated. Peter Do AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

“I was a bit more selfish this season,” Peter Do declared backstage of his autumn-winter 2022 show. “I wanted to do fashion that feels the most me, the most personal. I really like the suit. I like that it takes time to make, that you don’t need to buy many, and that when you find a good one, it becomes your safe space. I want to be that for women.” Some might call Do’s approach counterintuitive. After all, we’ve spent the last two years getting very comfortable out of suits. But a glance back at the pre-fall collections and a look around at the early New York shows says something different. The suit is back. Do’s exacting nature came across in his palette, which he restricted to just four colors – black, white, camel, and gray. His cuts were more expressive. Many of the day suits were color-blocked in spirals, so they looked different front to back. For evening he showed a trio of monochrome three-piecers that combined trousers, waistcoats elongated to the ankles, and double-face coats worn shrugged off the shoulders to expose bare arms and back. Jackets scaled way, way up into one-size-fits-all coats made a big statement, a requirement for outerwear purchases. We’re likely to see those on the street this time next year. Breaking up the tailoring were long pleated skirts of the sort that we’ve seen elsewhere this week and a pair of minimal, slightly A-line long dresses. With every season, Do is gaining the recognition of New York’s finest go-to labels.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Material Gworl. LaQuan Smith AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Before debuting his fiery autumn-winter 2022 collection on the runway this evening, New York-based designer LaQuan Smith took a moment of silence to acknowledge the late and great André Leon Talley – the longtime Vogue editor who changed the industry as we know it, due to his discerning eye and unparalleled enthusiasm (to be honest, it’s shocking that no other brand in the city mentioned Talley’s passing this season). During the hectic, fast-paced week, it was a classy touch on Smith’s part that reminded one to take a moment and to reflect. It also allowed spectators to quite literally take a breath, before having it taken away by the ultra-sexy clothes that followed. The opening number, for instance – modeled by Julia Fox, It girl of the moment – was a black turtleneck dress with bold chest cutouts. The crowd went wild for it. After two years of the pandemic, and the overuse of terms like “comfort dressing” or “loungewear,” Smith wanted to dial up the sex factor for autumn and vouch for the return of naughty glamour. This resulted in loads of sequins, fabulous mink coats, and extremely-mini skirts that just skimmed the buttocks – like a modern-day take on wild Studio 54 style. “This collection was really about the revival of New York City and celebrating life again,” said Smith. “I wanted to create a collection that gave women a sense of hope and celebration.”

His color palette of neutrals, paired with electrifying golds, reds, and blues, certainly woke you up with a jolt. Smith does sexy well. Sequin- or mink-covered body suits were paired with low-slung trousers that exposed hip bones. The dresses were cut short with deep-V necklines, while his version of leather pants came all zippered up like a moto jacket. Outerwear was a new category push for him, Smith said: “It’s all about these super-strong, big, New York shearlings, with these little itty-bitty sexy silhouettes underneath. It’s cold outside, but she’s going somewhere.” Smith’s clothes are certainly not for wallflowers. In the spirit of recent collections from, say, Blumarine or Versace, Smith sees the future of fashion as a time to be raunchy and show some skin. After two years of sweatpants, this feels right. There were a few key women who stuck with him during the design process as well. He cited style icons like Lil’ Kim and Grace Jones, as well as the regular everyday Manhattan women he’s witnessed growing up in New York. “I’d see women teetering in their heels in the Meatpacking District, when New York was vibrant, fun, and all about nightlife,” says Smith. “That kind of energy and level of excitement is what I’m trying to revive.” His latest assortment, he says, is what he envisions the current crop of New York party girls wearing. “It’s fresh, young, and sexy,” said Smith. “To me, it’s the new New York bitch.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.