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Festive Guide: Take It Easy

| Design & Culture by Ed

Balenciaga resort 2022

What to buy for the homebody? As the temperature dips, our homes become more important than ever. And for the homebody, this means a renewed commitment to all things hygge – with a focus on those everyday luxuries that make staying indoors ever more chic. At the top of her wishlist is undoubtedly a unique tracksuit that is polished yet practical. Tactility is key – so button-up cardigans, socks and blankets will tick all the right boxes, while a pair of shearling mules from Molly Goddard will delight. Here’s the “take it easy”, last-minute festive guide.

From left to right, top to bottom: Marc Jacobs logo-print mini t-shirt dress, Sleeper pompom-embellished shearling flats, Anine Bing sleep mask, Dries Van Noten feather-trimmed cotton-terry track pants & “Jean-Michel Basquiat. 40th Ed.” book by Taschen.

Marc Jacobs Heaven heart earrings, Proenza Schouler x Birkenstock “Arizona” slides, ERL logo socks, Cashmere In Love cashmere halter top & Amomento brown eco-fur balaclava.

Cashmere In Love hoodie, Rag & Bone bouclé sneakers, “Virgil Abloh. Nike. ICONS” book by Taschen, Issey Miyake shell knit bag & Dries Van Noten feather-trimmed cotton-jersey sweatshirt.

Marni sabot loafers, Coperni cut-out bodysuit, Bea Bongiasca asymmetrical flower power hoop earrings, Molly Goddard x UGG sheepskin slippers, Raf Simons silk pants & Rick Owens jacket.

All collages by Edward Kanarecki.

P.S. In this post, I happen to endorse products I genuinely love. If you end up buying something through the links, my site might earn an affiliate commission – which is always nice!

Layers. Proenza Schouler Pre-Fall 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

“These are urban clothes for intelligent women of today, like all our collections,” said Proenza Schouler‘s Lazaro Hernandez, “but there are frivolous elements.” For pre-fall 2022, the frivolity came in the form of ostrich feathers trimming the hem of bike shorts and full-leg pants, and beaded crochet bisecting a bubble-hem, halter-neck dress. Hernandez and Jack McCollough also worked with animal print, a motif they’ve more or less avoided until now, thinking it too obvious. One pretty draped dress in white was built with a leopard underlayer visible at the cuffs, hem, and unbuttoned sleeves, like a game of peekaboo. The intelligence and urbanity came via their exploration of silhouette. Pre-lockdown, their jackets were oversized, often with pronounced, masculine shoulders. Post-lockdown, their tailoring has grown narrower, partly out of instinct and partly as a result of client feedback. A bi-stretch crepe jacket buttons high and off-center, hugging the torso, and the matching pants are leggings-slim with zips at the back of the ankles to create kick-flare shapes. A tuxedo jacket worn with a shibori-treated turtleneck and big, fluid blue velvet pants has a swaggering ease. Elsewhere they managed the neat feat of making a white shirtdress feel languid by cutting it loose and adding ruching to the hips. Two other dresses conjured a similar dressed-but-effortless mood for evening; an emerald green knit style was gathered with a jeweled brooch at the waist, and a white sequined column was belted in front with a dramatic, look-at-her cape in back.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Femininity Spectrum. Area Resort 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

“It’s about femininity in all its forms,” said Area’s Piotrek Panszczyk of the New York-based label’s phenomenal resort 2022 collection preview with Vogue. “From hard-core sex kitten to something daintier with pink, daisies, and crystals.” That might sound impossibly broad, but reaching out to all the hot girls, quirky chicks, and vampish women is something Area has specialized in since the brand was founded in 2013 by Panszczyk and Beckett Fogg. The collection spans racy lingerie dotted with crystal bows, chic ivory suiting dangling with crystal fringe, and kitschy denim punctuated with massive brass studs. It’s a lot of look and a lot of drama for a ready-to-wear offering – but Panszczyk affirms it sells. Party options are many this season, with Area creating its own lace from crystal patterns, drawing inspiration from medieval armor for giant studded leather bows and bustiers, and ingeniously embellishing a black minidress with bright red press-on nails for a “rhinestoned at the nail salon” bit of camp. A growing denim offering adds to the label’s ready-to-wear expansion, as do its popular platform clogs and square-toed mules, now adorned with sweet little daisy charms. With the collection landing on Area’s e-commerce site right now, it seems like only a matter of time before bombshells from Miami to Macau start trying out the brand’s manic new femininity.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Elusive Chic. Chanel Pre-Fall 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

With a snip of her ribbon-looped scissors, Gabrielle Chanel released women from their corsets and put them in fluid jersey suits and loose chemise dresses. “Nothing is more beautiful than freedom of the body,” she said. With sweeping synergy, this season’s Chanel Métiers d’Art collection by Virginie Viard was equally liberating, with a pinch of denim and CC logo added. Viard invited guests to Le19M, the newly opened building devoted to the workshops of the maison’s artisans, where she presented her most crafts-centric collection within the very same architecture that had informed its cuts and motifs. Named after the arrondissement it inhabits, the triangular Le19M was designed by Rudy Ricciotti whose “concrete thread” façade evokes the intricacy of embroidered haute couture cloth. Viard echoed those lines – as well as elements from the building’s interior – in a collection she called “metropolitan.” The pre-fall 2022 line up is a combination of Chanel’s craftsmanship masters’ work – Lesage, Montex, Lemarié, Lognon, Goosens, Maison Michel, and Massaro – whose painstaking, super time-consuming, beautiful pieces of artisan work are put into the world to contribute to a bigger picture: the full look. Placing these age-old practices in a contemporary context, Viard took that look to the streets – at least those left of the River Seine. Interpreting the Chanel branding through graffiti-like embroidery, she exercised her take on the logomania. A top nestled the double-C among floral appliqué, the same logo was playfully speckled on cardigans and trousers in fluffy silver embroideries, and the Chanel name appeared tagged in multi-colored crystals across the front pockets of a tweed blouson that evoked a sweatshirt. A major Chanel tip: top the tweed outfit with an eternally charming hair bow. It took Viard a while to find her voice at Chanel and make her offerings something more than just riskless sets of the brand’s signatures. Now, the Chanel woman personifies unforced elegance and easy chic fit for contemporary times. And she sure loves gorgeous details!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Be Bold. Bottega Veneta Resort 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

Daniel Lee and Bottega Veneta parted ways last month, yet before we see Matthieu Blazy’s debut in February, there’s Lee’s resort 2022 collection which is the essense of his work for the brand. Development-wise, the collection predates the spring outing – Salon 03 – that took place in Detroit in October. The ideas here are much more precise and will definitely appeal to the New Bottega fans who will symbolically buy Lee’s final designs. It’s bright and upbeat, awash with juicy citrus and berry shades, and cut in rich, touchable textures. Not quite hedonistic but close; it’s a wardrobe for good times. In place of the directional tailoring that has distinguished preceding collections here, there was denim and corduroy, but done the Bottega Veneta way, meaning that the denim is knitted with jumbo stitching, and the corduroy comes in acid colors. Another no-brainer item that got the house treatment is the puffer; quilted on the bias in glossy orange and Hockney blue leather, it’s no run-of-the-mill jacket. If coming at everyday items with an elevated touch was one part of the Bottega Veneta story under Lee, the other was to emphasize high craftsmanship—to make things at a couture-like level without bending to couture-ish propriety. The hand-crocheted and -beaded dresses here belong to that rubric, even though they’re designed in the bare, easy shapes of beach cover-ups. Likewise, the intarsia shearling bathrobes. A dress underneath one of the robes, in a smaller version of the coat’s interlocking pattern, is cut from classic swimsuit material; together they really do channel the Miami-in-December vibe. And now the big question: after three years of Lee’s reign, which was cut abruptly, where will Blazy take the brand?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.