Finesse. Danielle Frankel AW25

April 14, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

I said it once, I will say again: Danielle Frankel is the contemporary maestra of bridalwear. Her designs are so exquisitely crafted and majestic in execution that you will inevitably desire to wear one of her dresses not only on that most special day, but on many other occasions. Dominated by bold, architectural, Art Deco shapes and Erté-inspired forms, the latest collection stuns with incredible construction and finesse.

Take the micro-pleated dress that swishes and swirls around the body, like flowing water. Except this isn’t a styling trick; the micro-pleats in the dress are actually hundreds of micro-bones holding the shape. Then, there’s the hand-painted silk chiffon made in collaboration with a French artist who moved in to Frankel’s New York atelier for a few weeks and created a breath-taking, impressionistic floral gown in dark green as well as the hand-painted organza cocoon worn by Kristen McMenamy in the lookbook.

Frankel makes all of her dresses in Manhattan’s Garment District, and she has a talented group of designers in her atelier that can rival any haute couture house. The finale gown, also modeled by McMenamy, is made of 100,000 petals which took the atelier four months to sew by hand. Somehow, it looks effortless – just like any truly great couture garment.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Boutique Pleasures. Abra AW25

April 9, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Abra – the brand name, but also Abraham Ortuño Perez‘s widely-known nick among industry insiders – grew from an accessory label to a ready-to-wear obsession. The designer, who did some of the biggest footwear hits for the likes of JW Anderson, Loewe and Jacquemus, is on a roll with his (very) personal endeavor. The autumn-winter 2025 collection is dedicated to the very pleasurable feeling of wanting to dress and look like those mythical, sophisticated city folk do in big fashion capitals, that he and his mother used to dream up in “fashion boutiques” when he was a child. “It’s this whole feeling of being from a small town and buying something imported, something from Paris!”, he mused. A nostalgic spark ignited Ortuño Perez’s whimsical yet sincere collection – a cheeky ode to peripheral boutique “hits” reimagined for the woman who dreams in fashion, not trends. His muse? Storefront mannequins of the late ’80s and early ’90s, dolled up in glitzy metallic lamés and over-the-top wigs. Perez gave us all that – and more. The show kicked off with faux-fur coats sculpted into giant roses. Only Perez’s playful lens could render them so fantastically offbeat. Then came hybrid coats – fur, gabardine, and suiting – riffing on “Working Girl” power dressing, now with rounded shoulders and leggings replacing pencil skirts. Closing the show was a trio of lamé dream dresses: one unraveling in fluid drapes, another with an off-kilter crinoline, and a third bursting with ruffled tiers. These were certainly THE boutique showstoppers.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Marmo. Pucci SS25

April 5, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Camille Miceli‘s latest Pucci collection was refreshing: not only because of its restrained color palette consisting of only black, white and shoft-shell pink, but because it felt essential (and at the same time exuberant – not an easy pairing to achieve). Presented at La Cervara, a medieval hilltop abbey with hidden cloisters just around Portofino, the spring-summer 2025 outing was dedicated to the Marmo motif, “the first print that seduced me,” the designer mused. Originally conceived by Emilio Pucci when he found himself mesmerized by the sunlit ripples inside Capri’s Grotta Azzurra, the swirling pattern carries a hypnotic, groovy rhythm. Miceli sublimated and revamped it, weaving it through the collection not only through kaleidoscopic prints, but metallic studs on palazzo pants and black-and-white beads on finale eveningwear, mini and maxi, that had a vintage flair, but in the end looked rather contemporary. The designer also excels when she blends Pucci’s very-Italian glamour with more rough, utilitarian touches. I loved how she combined a high-neck windcheater with an ankle-length skirt, completing the look with layers of silver jewels.

ED’s SELECTION:

PUCCI Printed Silk-twill Scarf

PUCCI Fringed Raffia And Organza Jacket

PUCCI Embellished Embroidered Leather Wedge Sandals

PUCCI Big Marmo Printed Silk-twill Kaftan

PUCCI Printed Silk-twill Scarf

PUCCI Leather-trimmed Knotted Printed Silk-twill Shoulder Bag

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Small Can Be Mighty. Comme Des Garçons AW25

March 25, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Let me tell you.. fashion month exhausted me to such extent I had to take a teeny-tiny break and I’ve missed a couple of shows in my usual reporting. This also made me realize, why the hurry? Before Instagram, you had to wait at least a month for any (printed) magazine to deliver a proper fashion month coverage. I remember those times, so I officially feel old.

Comme Des Garçons was an important moment. Rei Kawakubo’s wearable shapes and constructions were slightly (just slightly) getting daunting in the past few seasons with their amorphism and assamblage-ness, but for autumn-winter 2025, the designer went back to making clothes – or rather, concepts of clothes. Not that they were in any way normative. But you could see substantial ideas behind multiple cocktail dresses topping a black tutu base, or in the massive velvet crinolines. There were many layers of pink, red, and watermelon duchess satin bodices and skirts, smashed and clashed together, looking like some kind of couture godzilla. Meanwhile, on the soundtrack, the recording of the Bulgarian singers – as Adrian Joffe, Rei’s husband, shared – was of “workers in the fields, harvest, families, getting things done together.” This holds symbolism for Rei Kawakubo and for Joffe about the independence of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market – the two rare, assertive, yet thriving enterprises in an increasingly mega-corporation-dominated world.

Small can be mighty.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Phoebe Philo Collection C

March 19, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

On a slow, unassuming Tuesday afternoon, without a single teaser or notice, Phoebe Philo has released her new season lookbook.

Philo’s third full act – titled “Collection C” – is a line-up coming from a confident, assertive woman who knows what she wants. I was just thinking out loud which designer this fashion month got it right in terms of the eternal question: what do women really want from fashion? Well, I think that Phoebe has an absolutely convincing answer. An entire collection of answers.

The collection (that will hit the stores in the second half of 2025) further explores the theme of continuality, something that the British designer introduced in her debut. There are elements that we saw in her previous offerings, but styled differently, more spontaneously: as if a real woman was about to run her errands, and the clothes were the supporting characters, not main heroes. Leather bomber jackets (the label’s major seller) returns in new earthy shades, just like the XXL cabas bag or pajama-like sets in subtle checks. Note how fresh and current these items look. It’s really not about the next new thing, but perfecting what you’ve already got. But there are also exciting new additions, like all the delightful teddy coats or fringed leathers (I wonder if it’s a shawl or an oversized clutch?). Philo also re-owns the modern-day pannier she did in her swan song collection for Céline, this time in a delightful, russet jersey skirt in floor-sweeping length.

But what strikes most in the new release is the overall mood switch. The nay-sayers of Philo’s eponymous endeavor used to point out how distanced and stern the woman she envisioned felt in her first collections. That’s definitely not the case in “Collection C”, where the models charm us with smiles, flowing hair and spilling bags (note the cabas in acidic green and fluffy texture!). The brand is growing organically, and women resonate with its ethos. A sense of celebratory joy is certainly in the air.

Phoebe Philo is in her element, and that shows.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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