Back In South of France. Jacquemus SS24

January 29, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Jacquemus once again picked a signature, French location for his see-now-buy-now fashion show. I, personally, adore Fondation Maeght: when I visited it a couple of years ago, I was so entranced by the beauty of this art institution I never wanted to leave. Seasons ago, Nicolas Ghesquière of Louis Vuitton chose the Saint-Paul-de-Vence museum and its yards as his cruise venue, and he showed there some of his finest work ever. This place is a perfect location for a fashion show, yes – but only when the clothes match up to it, to all the Giacomettis and Matisses and Chagalls. Or at least build an intriguing, contextual, visual dialogue. I missed that part about Simon Porte Jacquemus‘ spring-summer 2024 collection. The rigid, overly statuesque silhouettes read and felt flat, some looks were even unflattering. The tailoring was just OK, just like the simplistic eveningwear. A pop of fringes here, a bit of leopard print there… it was all Insta-photogenic, but nothing else. A collection that would do much better in a white-cube setting in Paris. Although Jacquemus is repeatedly called a “marketing genius“, I still can’t grasp the connection between this line-up and the Kristin-Davis-as-Charlotte-York promo. And then Kylie Jenner and Julia Roberts in the f-row. Make it make sense.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Unhinged Galliano. Maison Margiela SS24 Couture

January 27, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

The moment the Maison Margiela haute couture show started, it was clear that no other collection we’ve seen this week really matters anymore. John Galliano did the most noble thing a contemporary designer can do: make people believe in fashion again. And confirm that couture is still really, really needed, because it can be the most beautiful, visually striking, inspiring and astonishing form of escapism.

In the last couple of seasons at Margiela, it was clear that Galliano is returning back to himself as a designer. But this spring-summer 2024 couture collection feels like a total release, total encapsulation of the unhinged Galliano – even not from the Dior days, but rather the early 90s shows in Paris under his own name, that stunned with theatricality, pure romanticism and casts of model so authentic you believed you’ve been transported to a different epoque. The scene: under the Pont d’Alexandre III after dark, down rain-soaked steps, with the Seine roiling alongside, a rancid Parisian nighttime joint with bare floorboards, cafe tables, dim mirrors, and a bar overflowing with spent drinks. The runway mise-en-scène suddenly turned into a living Brassai’s 1920s and ’30s portraits of the night-time underbelly of Paris’s clubs and streets. Galliano’s transferences into cutting, ultra-extreme corsetry, padded hips, erotically sheer lace dresses, and wildly imaginative hair, chiffon-masked makeup, and eerie doll-like body-modifications took a year. A year to work on a production that seamlessly mixed film – which played in the mirrors – into the scenario, showing lovers, dancers, and gangsters prowling the banks of the Seine. To make it seem that these strutting denizens, fugitives from fights, or half-dressed from sexual encounters, clutching their moon-bleached coats or scrappy cardigans around them were actually congregating from the riverside and into the club before our eyes. Through some of Galliano’s beautifully delicate hourglass dresses there was pubic hair to be seen through tulle and lace (they were merkins on underwear, but still bound to stir up a storm). Some of his indescribable techniques looked almost like walking paintings, greenish-pink watercolor nudes with blurry dabs for eyes. All the images and impressions from this show will be burned on the mind’s eye for many reasons and many years.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Nureyev Would Approve. Dior Men AW24

January 21, 2024January 21, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Autumn-winter 2024 collection might be Kim Jones‘ finest endeavor to date at Dior Men. There were 40 ready-to-wear looks and 20 couture, and according to the show notes, through the idea Rudolf Nureyev’s personal life and onstage persona, Jones explored an “idea of two lives lived … the world of the couture reflects the extravagance of his stage presence, of Nureyev’s flamboyance, insolence and elegance”. With the theatrical staging and dramatic soundtrack – a “revisiting” of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, courtesy of modern day composer Max Richter – in the background, Jones delivered a line-up that not only mused on Nureyev’s style, but also yet again gracefully told a story of queer experience. The ballet dancer’s off-duty, 70s style of zip-up suits was replicated in zipped wool jumpsuits in shades of dove-grey. The magnificent silver uchikake kimono was based on one Nureyev – a collector of vintage textiles – owned. It apparently took 10 craftspeople in Japan three months to complete. The garments were embellished with pearls or awed with the richness of croc-embossed leather. Sheer, metallic mesh tops with floor-sweeping veils were worn with louchely tailored trousers and overcoats with crystal embroideries. Some models wore velvet headwraps; the footwear was all about, you guessed it, ballet shoes. Interestingly, Jones and Nureyev have a brief, yet crucial family connection: Jones’s uncle was the ballet dancer and photographer Colin Jones, whose pictures of Nureyev, driving, reading, chatting on the phone, as well as dancing, formed a book left on each seat for the show’s guests. This outing was definitely one of the most enchanting moments of the menswear Paris Fashion Week, along with phenomenal Rick Owens’ at-home show.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – In The Artist’s Studio. Yohji Yamamoto AW24

January 20, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Yohji Yamamoto is designer with an endless fascination for artists – the individualism, the impulses, and the archetypes. From the loosely knotted poets’ blouse and a coat with peaked shoulders, to the sumptuous attire in velvet and brocade, this was a collection for that certain “genius working in the studio” person. Uniform of loose jackets and utility vests; shirts covered in vivid brushwork tucked into suspendered trousers. Dressed in these ensembles were some of his longtime artist collaborators – Wim Wenders and Max Vadukul – along with Warren Ellis, Norman Reedus, and the dancer Brandon Miel Masele. And while they appeared like distinctive personages, they also conjured some essence of the designer himself. For one of his two strolls down the runway, Vadakul donned a coat with “old bohemian” along the back. Would men consider this a badge of pride, a way of confronting reality with a smirk? “We’re older but that’s the only thing that changes,” the photographer acknowledged backstage. “What we create is still the same.” The show closed with Wenders in trousers printed with his name. Yamamoto and the filmmaker worked together in 1989 when the director made Notebook, a documentary about cities and clothes. Yamamoto noted how they were both children born in the aftermath of war-torn cities and have alchemized that darkness into work that has a poetic resonance. If the collection unleashed ideas with a sort of feisty enthusiasm, the pace was calm, and the mood was poignant.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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In The Mood For… Magda Butrym Pre-Fall 2024

January 20, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

The latest Magda Butrym collection, photographed by Vitali Gelwich in the cinematic, soc-realist halls of Warsaw’s Palace of Science and Culture, is a sexy take on the designer’s sensual eveningwear and razor-sharp tailoring. Kept in the color palette of signature rose-red, white and black, the line-up, mood-wise, is somewhere between Wong Kar-Wai’s elusive “In The Mood For Love” (just take a look at the scarlet gown covered in bouquets of flowers) and David Leitch’s explosive “Atomic Blonde” (the black leather coat is giving badass secret agent). Butrym feels more and more confident in playing around with the feminine and masculine codes, and that shows. Her pre-fall 2024 heroine is both chic and “don’t cross me” in her all-black, all-leather looks. In case of accessories, the ultimate highlights are the maxi-length, ribbed scarves, nonchalantly worn like feather boas, and the hand-crocheted shopper bag: a nod to the brand’s Polish heritage and love for artisanship.