Anthony Vaccarello‘s pre-fall 2025 collection for Saint Laurent serves as a subtle prelude to the winter fashion show we’ve seen back in March. While the ultra-boxy, exaggerated outerwear silhouettes are absent here, we instead get the first hints of bold, saturated colors (Vaccarello really knows how to use orange) and maxi-length skirts that echoed the show’s finale with their gargantuan volumes. The main theme for this lookbook line-up is the year of 1966, a pivotal moment in Yves Saint Laurent history: the launch of the Rive Gauche ready-to-wear label. The collection couldn’t get more ready-to-wear: Prince of Wales plaid blazers and skirts (Yves’ signature), leather jackets you want to wear (and wear out), boudoir lace slips and fluffy furs. The Left Bank allure is far from dead.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Today, Lorde released Man Of The Year, her second single from the highly-anticipated Virgin album. The song is heart-and-gut-wrenching in the most Lorde way you can imagine: raw, vulnerable, unfiltered. By the time we reach the outro, Let’s hear it for the man of the year, there is a subtle shift from mourning to ecstatic celebration. The phrase is repeated like a sarcastic toast, both honoring and burying (burning alive!) the man who inspired the deep, painful turmoil. But ultimately, Man of the Year is not really about him. It is about Lorde reclaiming the narrative, re-emerging from ego death and heartbreak with sharpened clarity.
Quite coincidentally, it was officially announced today (after months of speculation) that Maria Grazia Chiuri is stepping down from Dior. Social media raved: finally!; fashion gods heard our prayers; the end of a nightmare. Voiced especially by men, you just can’t not agree with @lewissmag that there’s a tinge (or even plenty) of misogyny sparking that excitement of a woman departuring a maison like Dior after a decade of immense volume of work. A reminder that the fashion males, queer or not, had a very similar blast when Virginie Viard left Chanel. They were in heaven.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’ve never been a number one fan of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s work at Dior – just not my cup of tea, aesthetically. But I do realize that all the logo totes aren’t her sin: it’s in fact LVMH and Bernault Arnault’s endless financial insatiability that powered Dior’s horrific merchandise in the last decade. Just think of the once sophisticated and chic Dior boutique on Avenue Montaigne that now looks like a massive, tacky department store. It’s also not Chiuri’s fault. Unfortunately, creative directors really don’t have all the power when leading a brand.
What this female designer managed to make out of Dior is turning it into a brand that’s in a way similar to Giorgio Armani’s universe: you don’t have to follow it from season to season, because you won’t really see a revolution on the runway – but there’s always a beautiful dress, a great coat, a proper jacket. A continuity that has its rhyme and rhythm.
In a way, it seems to me that Maria Grazia Chiuri truly refound herself at the very end of her tenure at Dior. Her pre-fall 2025 show in Tokyo had a spark. Her swan song outing, for resort 2026, presented in the enchanting garden of Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome, was powerful in its grace. Those velvet column gowns are pure delights, just as the remarkable fur coats that are actually made from plume. The collection’s opening look, a masculine white tailcoat worn with a maxi-length, matching skirt, is the absolute essence of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s contribution to fashion, in past misguided by unfortunate styling or simply obscured under all the gimmicks of fashion show spectacles. This ideal, minimalist yet sumptuous simplicity was followed by many variations on the theme of the long, slim, semi-sheer dress. The lace effects were almost countless – 3D florals, rivulets of ruffles, leafy cut-outs, wavy art deco frills, gilded latticework covered with silken fringe. Underwear visible, shoes flat. A statement.
And then, the haute couture finale featuring caviar-beaded, trompe l’oeil-effect dresses that looked like statues dating back to Ancient Rome. Male statues, to be precise. Torsos, like armors (a theme moved very literally by Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton just a week ago). Going back to Lorde, Man Of The Year’s cover art is a Talia Chetrit photograph of the singer’s bust, covered with duct tape. Now, do you see the connection between these two?
Will Maria Grazia Chiuri return to fashion in the near future? Probably she will spend her time on cultural initiatives, like the Teatro Della Cometa she renovated and reopened to the public a couple of days ago. And who will lead Dior’s womenswear now? Probably Jonathan Anderson. Another M.O.T.Y.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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You know I’m pretty much always on fence with Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton. But the collection he presented yesterday at the 14th century Palais des Papes in Avignon? It was brilliant. The Ghesquière-for-Balenciaga kind of brilliant.
The designer’s far-flung destination shows have consistently outshone his Paris ready-to-wear collections. Remember that time he whisked his guests away to Palm Springs? When Rianne Van Rompaey (who retired from modeling this year) wore a billowy, 1930s-inspired maxi dress and dramatically cranked up the high-end loudspeaker as the show began? Not only was that défilé spectacular, but the clothes were equally impressive – both inventive and cool. The Avignon collection had that signature edgy NG flair, the one that we all so sorely missed in the past few seasons or so.
For resort 2026, Nicolas embraced Medieval dress and transformed it into a surprisingly modern proposition. We live in an era where wearing an armor would come handy. Women’s rights and bodily autonomy continue to face threats, from Trump’s administration in the U.S. to rising conservative movements across Europe, including in France. Whether through a literal interpretation of chainmail in the form of a tasseled, metallic top, or via rounded, architectural capes – and in some cases, curtain-like mini-capelets worn over mini-dresses – this show offered plenty of armor. These pieces didn’t just look protective and built-up; they were, in their own way, chic. Ghesquière even seemed to pay homage to his spiritual predecessor, his alma papa, Cristóbal Balenciaga, sending down the runway several intricately embellished, t-shirt-like mini-dresses that felt like modern descendants of the Basque designer’s iconic sack dress.
I also sensed a hint of time travel back to the 1968 Paris protests. The Sorbonne students’ anti-bourgeois style – ironically lifted from their parents’ wardrobes – surfaced in elements like newsboy caps, fur-collared jackets, and a layered skirt made from plaid blanket fabric. The collection’s hero motif – paisley – looked like something salvaged from a thrift store and revitalized with edge. Meanwhile, a wool cape adorned with cartoon-strip flames seemed to leap from Pierre Cardin’s studio, where the designer once dreamed up a bright, space-age future.
Louis Vuitton is a brand that sells bags. Ready-to-wear – especially the one presented on the runway – isn’t it’s bread-and-butter. Nicolas Ghesquière occupies a uniquely rare position of creative freedom – and commands a vast platform – to make fashion that doesn’t need to sell, but rather to spark conversation. This collection was certainly his brightest, envelope-pushing moment in the past couple of years.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Gucci is going through a financialannus horribilis, but its creative studio is working hard. Yesterday’s resort 2026 outing in Florence – first previewed at the brand’s Palazzo Settimanni archive, then presented outdoors on Piazza Santo Spirito – was a deep departure from Sabato De Sarno’s era of blandness, and a subtle introdution to Demna’s rapidly-approaching era (his debut will hit Milan in September). Many think that the latter was already present in the execution of this collection, at least in accepting the final looks – but I honestly doubt it. That would be a false-start I truly can’t imagine Demna would allow himself. Expect the most unexpected once he really enters the office.
This new Gucci collection is a creation of a smart design team that knows Gucci codes (and archives) through and through. With Suzanne Koller’s styling help, the line-up had chic charisma: think big, faux-fur-collared coats worn over tight pencil-skirts and the general 1980s vibe, the stylist’s signature touch. She did go a little too far with the haphazard way of carrying bags at the very tip of the strap – make it make sense, please. The collection can be read like a mix of new and old of the Gucci semiotics: Tom Ford’s whiff of sexy and Alessandro Michele’s knack for vintage-y eclecticism (as a result, the eveningwear looked like the current Valentino offering).
This collection won’t end up in a fashion history book, that’s for sure, but at least it resuscitated Gucci as a brand that has an identity. Or identities one can play around with. Also, it makes you want to browse vintage Gucci online and create a look that has that Florentine sciura glam…
See the animated version of the collage on my Instagram.
I was chatting recently with a friend who works in fashion, and we both came to the conclusion that Ponte – Harry Pontefract‘s highly elusive brand-slash-concept – is the most exciting and subversive thing to emerge in quite some time. It’s just so daring, transgressive, and disruptive of all possible industry norms. And lead by a truly rare talent.
“Operatic” is how the designer characterized his autumn-winter 2025 corseted dress and matching stole crafted from the fleece of approximately ten sheep. The fleeces were hand-felted and stitched together, then meticulously brushed out over the course of a week by a dedicated hairdresser to achieve maximum volume and softness (Kristen McMenamy is wearing the striking piece in the latest issue of Double Magazine, lensed by Juergen Teller). Another look embraced precision and minimalism: a pair of jeans made from deconstructed garments, stripped of every stitch, grommet, and fastening, then starched into a crisp, paper-like form. “It was quite beautiful just to do something as generic as denim,” Pontefract noted, explaining that time will naturally alter the rigid silhouette, softening it into drapes – an evolution that mirrors nature’s own cycles. Time is an important theme for the designer. You don’t really hear about brands that so consciously reflect on how it’s clothes will change – or even deteriorate – over time.
Having worked with Jonathan Anderson, known for his fashion “glitches”, Pontefract offers a quieter, more introspective approach. His label is small, his designs intimate. Here, boundaries blur – between past and present, body and garment – in ways that are both lyrical and provocative. Consider, for instance, a strap-on tutu–belt bag crafted from 40 meters of tulle. There’s a palpable boldness in this work, both in concept and execution. “We don’t and shouldn’t make things just because we think they’ll sell,” Pontefract said. “And I think that’s quite freeing.”
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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