Men’s – Incense In The Air. John Alexander Skelton AW24

January 12, 2024January 17, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

In London, (the unofficial) Men’s Fashion Week couldn’t begin in a more astounding, ecclesiastically-euphoric way. At St. Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest parish church, with air heavy with incense, John Alexander Skelton had his triumphant return to the runway. For autumn-winter 2024, the designer -took inspiration from the gothic aesthetic and intangible emotions that This Mortal Coil, an ’80s dream pop collective, elicited. “It’s my emotional response to the music“, he said. That took shape in romantic longline coats, tailored suiting, knitwear and shirting, with Skelton’s signature horn buttons dotted throughout, and sported by stately models clutching lit candles in hand. Regal, but chic; mystical, but not whimsy.

Inky blacks composed the majority of this season’s palette, a choice Skelton attributed to examining 15th-century portraiture in which wearing black was “generally thought of as a power symbol,” he explained. It was contrasted with a drop of blood-red ruby, which took the form of meaty velvets. While John Alexander Skelton is often inclined to spin a rich and theatrical yarn around his collections, the essence of his appeal lies in the clothes themselves – just hold one of his shirts or tailored trousers in your hands, and the extraordinary craftsmanship and timeless textiles look and feel just as arresting as any of his runway spectacles.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Characters. Magliano AW24

January 11, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Luca Magliano is the name that finally shakes up the term “emerging designer” in case of Italian fashion – which has always been monopolized by the hegemony of big brands. Being the guest designer at Florence’s Pitti Uomo, Magliano presented a collection that delivered the true, uncompromising essence of the brand: poetic, heavy-on-tailoring clothes with a punk spirit at heart. Characters – not just models – swathed in gray, mud and sage green garments strode the long staircase used as a runway at the Nelson Mandela Forum. What stood out the most was the layering which in case of Magliano goes to extremes and carries a certain sense of fluidity: a varsity jacket worn over a too-long chunky sweater, an over-sized Armani-esque jacket topping a billow-y shirt and voluminous cargo pants, a plum, buttoned cardigan styled as cape over a black boucle coat… the list of outfit-sandwiches goes on and on. What else makes this brand so different comparing to the gloss and perfectionism of Italian runways is the styling that feels spontaneous and utterly authentic. Autumn-winter 2024 hero look: the silver fox model in sequined pants and a cat-bearing fuzzy sweater, plus unexpected accessories: a what seems to be plastic grocery bag and velvet slippers in burgundy. It’s just the beginning of menswear fashion month, but this look already seems to be one of my ultimate favorites of the season.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Like A Hug. Ottolinger Pre-Fall 2024

January 9, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Ottolinger is a brand that best captures the gritty, experimental ambience of contemporary Berlin. Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient‘s pre-fall 2024 collection seeks harmony between the idiosyncratic and a more grounded approach. “We’ve been creative and experimental for a long time, but with this collection what we wanted to achieve is like giving that big hug we all need right now”. A hug definitely comes to mind looking at all the furry and fluffy textures that enfold the models in the lookbook. The sage green jersey top and strap-embellished leggings worn with a fleecy chocolate miniskirt is a combination “that connects with what we grew up with, that’s almost dressed up but also casual” (a very good summary of style in Berlin). The furry fabric returned as a tailored jacket with wide-legged trousers, or as deep cuffs on green knickers.

The Ottolinger designers aimed to offer a collection of “softshell layers” that would be easy to master, even if many are rooted in traditional Swiss garb that’s anything but. Take, for example, the classic dirndl, the likes of which lives on mainly in vintage Oktoberfest photos, and which neither designer thinks they could wear. Unless, perhaps, it was reincarnated as a mesh crop top, a long printed dress paired with a tailored blazer, or exuberantly printed body-positive separates. Taking a cue from traditional men’s garb, lederhosen is revisited in mesh, or as shiny flared trousers in red and white chalet checks. Fun!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Twisted. Keisukeyoshida SS24

December 30, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

As we’re approaching 2023’s end, I wanted to spotlight one of the most intriguing emerging designers out there: Keisuke Yoshida. “I’ve had an image of this woman in my mind,” the Japanese designer said while explaining his new collection. “In my head, she’s wearing an outfit, and I can’t tell if it is a wedding dress or a mourning dress. But somehow, I know that she’s like a mother.” Last season, Yoshida’s imaginary maternal muse had been a strict, teacher-like figure with fabric clasped tight across her throat, but this time she’s come undone. Yoshida had engineered her transformation through feminine staples, using ivory silk blouses and soft, dusty pink tailoring that bared the chest, while lapels and collars were inverted or twisted so that they poked up in awkward directions, as though they’d been pulled on in a hurry. Old wedding dresses Yoshida had found in Tokyo were reworked into one-off corsets, lace gloves, and trousers, so that embellishments of pearls and sparkly lace glistered over hands or raced across the thigh, while broken ceramics served as earrings alongside seductive secretary specs. Best of all was a would-be office-appropriate pencil skirt, out of which peeked a silk camisole whose straps dangled upside down towards the ankles. Those theatrically spiky stilettos and wide-brim hats could well have evoked Irving Penn, or old photographs of Parisian couture from the 1950s, but what makes Yoshida’s work feel right for the moment are the strange quirks he sprinkles in to humanize everything, offsetting any old-world glamour or preconceived notions of feminine mystique to create something delicately twisted.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Girl Uninterrupted. Zimmermann SS24

December 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

I’ve never been a Zimmermann person, but since Lana Del Rey was wearing the brand’s dresses throughout her 2023 tour, I had to reinvestigate its ultra-girl charm. And I must say that I’m in love with Nicky Zimmermann‘s spring-summer 2024 offering. In a collection that contained three main and sometimes intermingling strands – sportily versatile knit pieces; volumized many-ruffled and guipure-edged georgette and charmeuse dresses; and slouchy but smart tailoring in denim and leather – you had a sense of breezy easiness. The pastel jersey looks resembled off-duty dancers’ attire, built for freedom of movement but not visually defined by technicality: a compelling alternative for the yoga-pant constituency. This sporty duality carried over into racerback white lace crops, which were used as formfitting eveningwear base layers over pretty, vaguely Sicilian baptism-gown butterfly-and-flower-pattern voile dresses edged with more cappuccino froths of lace. There was similar genre-blending in looks that placed spaghetti-strap, sometimes semi-sheer tiered mid-length backless dresses over appealingly generous, carrot-cut washed jeans, or light lace tops under textured tailoring. The dresses included a caped and draped robe in graduated dégradé patches of violet, orange, and pale yellow derived from abstract landscapes. Zimmermann said the often layered and backless flower-bomb gowns and shirtdresses had been purposefully given a washed, faded finish because “we want it to feel that the girls are walking and the flowers are just around them.” Sometimes garlanded with lace petals and handsome golden jewelry, including bunch-of-grapes earrings, these had a Dionysian freshness to them. As the viral TikTok sound sums up, “this is so Lana Del Rey vinyl“.