style

American Dream. ERL SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

ERL is on everyone’s lips. Although Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa wear it on the daily, and Chloë-the-queen-of-style-Sevigny shared her love for the new collection on her Insta-stories yesterday, it still feels somewhat niche and off-the-radar. It’s not available in every store yet, so there’s a feeling of appeal-driving deficit. Eli Russell Linnetz’s name causes conversations – and you hear a spectrum of feelings, from delight and reluctance to excitement and skepticism. One thing’s sure: ERL is thriving, and it’s just the start. The California-based brand, now in its fourth full season with Dover Street Market Paris, is not just clothing – it’s everything. A way of being, of putting an ab-skimming tee with tatty, low-slung vaguely Hollister-ish jeans, sure, but also a method for re-assessing your life and your style. Theatricality, time, and obsession are important tenets of ERL-ism, emphasis on obsession – these are some maniacally pored over garments. “Cross-dimensional hitchhiking, making the way to California” and “a romantic blowing in the wind journey across all parts of America” were two ways Linnetz described his spring 2022 mood. He’s taken his surfer boys and plopped them in a pickup truck, scanning through the hayfields and mountainsides of mid-America, with pit stops at prom and football matches along the way. The ERL dude’s got a new passenger too: Linnetz is launching womenswear, and it’s an equally manic trip through the codes of casual American style. Tiered do-si-do skirts in acid trip colors clash with girlish cotton tops and school picture day knitwear, dotted with embroidered flowers. Most of the collection is shared across the genders, giant shearling pieces and wide wale cords offering something humble, while radioactive tuxedos and Fogal tights printed with archival Rudi Gernreich patterns looking aggressively kitsch. Linnetz photographed the pieces himself, in his Venice Beach studio, on street-cast models. Earnest-faced, obvious hunks and wallflowers who skew young, almost disturbingly prepubescent. Can a real guy ever look as good in an orange V-front cable knit polo sweater? Can a real woman capture the kookiness of a half-blazer half, floral top? ERL is tapping into the American Dream of a new generation: to become the character you say you are.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Men’s – Full Throttle. Celine SS22

| Design & Culture by Ed

As Phoebe Philo is coming back to fashion, the Celine wound seems to heal. Which doesn’t mean I suddenly love Hedi Slimane‘s vision – but at least I can tolerate it. Still, his men’s spring-summer 2022 collection left me with some mixed feelings. This season, we’ve got an action-and-item packed Celine show recorded by drones somewhere on the Archipel des Embiez in the south of France. On a black runway set up with freestyle motocross ramps and jumps, teams of shirtless Honda-riding boys leapt and arced against the Mediterranean sky. The location is apparently not far from where Slimane lives outside St.Tropez, and this was Slimane on home territory in more ways than one: capturing his endless obsession with male teen energy, studding the collection with multiple art collabs, and wrapping it all up to the beat of a mesmeric looped soundtrack. The FMX bikers belong to a community that invented its renegade free-riding sport in the hills of California in the early ’90s – Slimane has been documenting them since 2011, when he came across them while he was living in L.A. This time, he commissioned and co-produced the music with Izzy Camina, intersecting the long, slouching march of a black-leather and silver-sparkled collection with souvenir slogan T-shirts and prints made by 14 of the emerging artists he collects and promotes. Since the pandemic hit, Slimane has shifted his Celine productions into the open air and into spectacular French locations. Wherever he lands, though, be it a Formula One racetrack, a chateau in the Loire valley, or this time, on a rocky coastline, there’s always the same, recognizable atmosphere, the romantic-erotic stamp Slimane puts on a world inhabited by young men. His meeting of motocross daredevilry and neo-rave frippery nailed the current summer of spring-summer 2021 teen spirit – a full-ranging breakdown of XXL elephant jeans, mirrored bug sunglasses, scaled-up bombers, tour jackets, and draped tuxes. Black capes flew over black leathers; sequins, crystals, and silver western boots glinted. Slimane targets Gen Z, and he confidently thinks he knows what they want. But I’m not sure if his take on youth is actually that relevant today. To me, it feels like an over-done costume. And Gen Z look forward to the unforced sense of authencity.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Joviality. Jil Sander Resort 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

“This collection is really about individuality, about the uniqueness of the person – we really cared about the human [aspect],” said Luke Meier on a Zoom call with Vogue. What we experienced in quarantine, he explained, was “the feeling of longing for special people in our lives, the interesting characters we missed, the importance of interaction.” The dialogue between fashion and art, “how they fit together,” as Meier said, isn’t just an important conceptual component in his and his wife Lucie’s fashion practice; it’s also one of the central topics of their course at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where they head the fashion department. “For us it’s always about how good design can enhance the individual life of a person and the beauty that surrounds that person. It shouldn’t be just about making an object that’s beautiful,” said Luke. “In everything artistic there should be something functional, and it has to be at the service of the person,” chimed Lucie. Given this line of thought, “the ideas and philosophy behind the Bauhaus movement became relevant references for us,” she said. Resort was about harmonizing artistic gestures of decoration with the clarity of design and purpose they’ve brought to Jil Sander. Each piece was given an individual character, in a sort of syncopated yet quite cohesive narrative. What tied the eclectic offering together was a sense of soft playfulness, smoothing the edges of sculptural silhouettes inspired by the graphic lines of Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet costumes. Undulating ruffles, fringed tassels, feathers, studwork, and statement jewelry gave grace to neat, elegant shapes. A dramatic sleeveless black-top-and-round-skirt ensemble in guipure lace, a chic strapless trapeze dress in off-white silk gazar, and a sleek pantsuit with a detachable round capelet also in silk gazar – one of the collection’s main fabrics, “as it holds the shape beautifully” – all looked like they came out of a couture atelier. Lucie’s work at Dior as co–creative director after Raf Simons’s departure in 2015 seemed to gently resurface. “There are elements of couture,” she said, “but I like to keep them light and playful, with a more casual, lighthearted attitude.” The Meiers’ flair for the artisanal, which they integrate into their equal fondness for rigor, was in evidence in a deep-dyed multicolored summer dress with brushstrokes across the bodice. It signaled a more lively use of color and patterns elsewhere, as in a slim leather overcoat printed with a figurative motif of dancing women, painted by an illustrator friend. “It’s stark but jovial,” joked Luke. It was a rather accurate summing up of the collection’s mood – the joviality certainly induced also by the recent arrival in the Meier family of little Ella Rose, who made a sleepy cameo appearance at the end of the Zoom call.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Curated Wardrobe. Maryam Nassir Zadeh Resort 2022

| Design & Culture by Ed

Contemporary, New York chic? It’s Maryam Nassir Zadeh‘s brand. The designer comes at her collections from multiple vantage points: as a designer, as a retailer (her Lower East Side store is set to reopen soon), and as a true lover of clothes. She has an epic personal archive filled with labels she discovered early on – Nassir Zadeh was one of the first New York stores to sell Jacquemus and Eckhaus Latta – as well as designer treasures and vintage finds she’s collected over the years. As for her brand’s archive, she’s been busy revisiting and editing every piece she’s ever made, plus dozens of prototypes and one-offs, to get it to a place that reflects her tastes today. Post-pandemic, she’s leaning more minimal, but not in a stark or staid way; there’s a delicateness to it, even in the menswear.  For resort 2022, she tried on almost every piece she’s kept, one by one, and re-cut the best ones to create the ultimate “curated” MNZ wardrobe. Her past few collections have followed a similar approach, initially due to the constraints of the pandemic; in 2020, her team didn’t have the resources to create brand-new samples with brand-new fabrics. But Zadeh didn’t think that resort would have turned out “better” if it was entirely new stuff. The time and care she put into hand-selecting the clothes – and occasionally redoing them in different colors or fabrics – amounted to a collection heartfelt and personal. Diehard fans might spot a few of her “greatest hits,” but Zadeh and her stylist, Thistle Brown, re-styled each piece so they’re hardly recognizable. Several dresses were transformed into skirts thanks to artful knots or belt bags around the waist, while a neon orange midi dress was shown with a full skirt underneath, sort of like a petticoat. Beyond showing you how to wear the new pieces, Zadeh hopes it will inspire her entire community to get more creative with their MNZ favorites at home. A few looks were styled with bikinis, now a brand signature, or asymmetrical bodysuits in mushroom-y colors. They lent an undone, balletic feeling to the skirts, sort of like a Lower East Side spin on a dancer’s uniform.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Tilda’s Cannes

| Design & Culture by Ed

I usually don’t do red carpet coverages, but Tilda Swinton (with a pinch of Timothée Chalamet) at this year’s Cannes Festival is an exception. It was a Swinton fashion week, if you ask me. This woman doesn’t only elevate each film she stars in, but she also serves looks like no one else. Whether it’s a custom, colorful ensemble by Haider Ackermann – one of her most frequent collaborators and, privately, best friends – or a Schiaparelli haute-shirt-dress, Tilda owned Cannes. Here’s a recap of her looks!

The Haider Ackermann look from Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” premiere is everything. It included a cropped, pink satin bolero blazer and top, paired with an orange floor-length skirt. Never one to skimp on theatrical flair, Swinton wore sequin green sleeves underneath the blazer. Timothée in Tom Ford was a great addition.

Another Haider Ackermann look – this time, it’s all about impeccable, electric blue tailoring. Amazing.

Tilda fell in love with Daniel Roseberry‘s Schiaparelli, and this means we can expect seeing her in the Parisian maison‘s couture soon. For Cannes, she chose Roseberry’s haute classics. This crisp, white shirt(dress) is so chic.

Swinton in Virginie Viard‘s Chanel – I love. This white gown is so functional – perfect for the Cannes red carpet, yes, but I can also see it worn to the French Riviera beaches. It’s both elegant and easy, refined, yet approachable.

“Casual” done the Tilda way is going for over-sized Loewe by Jonathan Anderson.

Another Schiaparelli, another shirt, but a totally different vibe. Here, Swinton went boy-ish, and announced global peace with that beautiful, Picasso-esque dove illustration.

Maybe I’m not entirely a fan of this Chanel look, but then, here’s the ultimate, sophisticated pirate à la Parisienne mood.