American Archetypes. Conner Ives AW22

February 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

It’s really fascinating how designers in London look at the lexicon of all things Americana. Matty Bovan‘s take tackled toxic masculinity and deconstructed American pop culture. Conner Ives‘ autumn-winter 2022 runway had a more humorous approach towards the American Dream, as the designer made a strong statement about the sentiment of new American style. He drew directly from American archetypes and aesthetics: Jackie O, Andy from The Devil Wears Prada (!), contestants from America’s Next Top Model, and even the models from Isaac Mizrahi’s iconic film Unzipped. “It sounds really cheesy, but honestly, this is something I’ve dreamed about doing since I was five years old.” It was a big rite of passage indeed for the young American alum of Central Saint Martins – a boy who grew up in Bedford, New York, logging onto Style.com and watching Tim Blanks’s Fashion File interviews. In 2021, he graduated – in the misery year when no student was able to have a final runway show. Though that proved no barrier to being able to build up a retail market for his reclaimed patchwork T-shirt dresses, getting picked out by Andrew Bolton for a purchase that put a design of his in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and getting invited to the Met gala, and being selected as a runner-up in last year’s LVMH Prize competition.

If Central Saint Martins teaches one bottom-line rule, it’s always the individualistic insistence on students being true to their identities. That’s a lesson that Ives has patently taken as gospel. His show said that in every look, each one systematically named after Y2K pop movie/reality show actors, actual girl clique leaders he knew in high school, hero-worshipped female relatives, and American women he has always fantasized about knowing. There was Ives’s vision of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy as a bride in a sleeveless, bias-cut dress and matching headscarf-cum-train. He had a “Madam Vice President” look: a dream pitch for Kamala Harris to wear a Conner Ives cream and brown patchwork scarf dress. There was a cowgirl, representing an influential aunt in Santa Fe, wearing laser-printed denim and turquoise jewelry. And “The Editor,” an Ives fan note to Anna Wintour, thrown back to an evening in the 2000s when she wore a white tank and a red flounced flamenco-ish skirt designed by Oscar de la Renta for Balmain. Near the finale, Jackie Kennedy came out in a simple cream Watteau-back gown with a huge quilted patchwork star planted in its midsection. Another lesson Ives has seriously taken to heart is upcycling and repurposing. The sexy-skimpy glam and funny identifiable references might be the primary attractions of his kick-flares; leisure suits; and silk-fringed, piano-scarf dresses and skirts, but Ives sources all of it from deadstock and vintage garments and materials. In other words, here was the first public outing of a very modern designer – fun and good times on the one hand, and on the other as much of a stickler as he can be about his production process. Rarely do those two things go together in contemporary fashion. Ives also intends to forgo the waste of showing every season. He plans to do a runway show only once a year.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Total Elevation. Marc Jacobs SS22

February 19, 2022June 29, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

New York Fashion Week may officially be over, but that didn’t stop one of it most beloved showmen from unveiling a surprise new collection on Instagram. What’s New York’s fashion scene without Marc Jacobs? The 10 look line-up (which will be available exclusively at Bergdorfs), is essentially a glamorous reworking of Marc’s remarkable autumn-winter 2021, with their grand silhouettes slashed into new skin-baring forms, cargo pants transformed into sweeping statement skirts, and brilliant paillette embellishments wrapped into something stunningly new. The collection came up quite spontaneously. As Jacobs avoided the phygital fashion and virtual shows which largely defined this industry through 2020 and 2021, he instead waited until he had the potential of a live runway to create a collection for. “We were like, ‘we’re not showing until we can do a show the way we show,’” Marc told I-D. “But then, this time, me and Joseph [Carter, from his design team] and Alastair (McKimm, Marc’s collaborator) decided that we were going to make some clothes. And we were going to photograph them.” In result, this new collection appears exceptionally impactful, something of a deeply desirable dystopian fantasy. “We played with the clothes that we made before in order to make other, new clothes,” he explained. So paillette pieces were slashed and wrapped into new apparitions, while a denim jacket draped on the body to become a fabulous sculpted stole. Couture-level deconstruction, something the designer is obsessed with lately. “There was this word that kept going around early on in the process: elevate,” Marc laughed. “‘It has to be elevated, it has to be elevated.’ I looked it up in the dictionary – and to elevate has two definitions. Firstly: to raise or lift something up to a higher position, and secondly: to raise to a more important or impressive level.” He managed to tap into both meanings with this mind-blowing offering, as we can see.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Sensual Versatility. No Sesso AW22

February 18, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Using traditional American materials, from brown houndstooth wool to red nylon, No Sesso‘s designers Pia Davis and Autumn Randolph wrote their own lexicon of fashion classics steeped in their experiences as Black women. Dresses dripped off the body, some in filmy olive chiffon, others in crisp cotton shirting, cradling the bust and revealing slivers of torso, thigh, and breasts. A one-shoulder silhouette with cargo pockets appeared in several different fabrications, hammering home the piece’s versatility. The real stars of the lineup were the upcycled pieces and the pair’s new Levi’s collaboration. The former, made using vintage varsity jackets, ties, puffer jackets, and other unloved fashion items, took the brand’s familiar practice and pushed it to new heights. A dress collaged together from pieces of old knitwear was trimmed in crystal beading, almost ethereal in its execution, while a short zip-front dress was boldly sexy. The denim pieces made with Levi’s toed the line of appropriateness, using corsets, lacing, and zippers to transform a cool, oversize jacket into a sexy little dress. That play of sexual and sensual with something more appropriate is the territory where No Sesso thrives. It’s also the place where Davis and Randolph are able to combine their skills as artists and as pragmatists. This No Sesso collection included more utilitarian, essential pieces than ever before without losing the pair’s deconstructivist touch.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Chic Awkwardness. Maryam Nassir Zadeh AW22

February 16, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Maryam Nassir Zadeh‘s style and aesthetic language (re)defines what New Yorker women (and men) really wear, love and want. Trying to understand the nuance of the label can be like cracking a secret code – and the autumn-winter 2022 collection is quintessentially MNZ. To her and her community, a sort of chic awkwardness – which never feels like a costume! – is everything. Here is Susan Cianciolo, the godmother of all Lower East Side style, in a plaid scarf wrapped around her head, and a leather, boxy skirt set. Putting Drake Burnette in a slender ringer tee and charismatic long pencil skirt means something. Lexie Smith’s sheer butter-colored trousers under a sort of uncanny work dress are intentional; layering coats for Angel Prost mimics Prost’s own magpie style. On the whole, these clothes come with a gentle handfeel, lent by shell buttons on a lichen short sleeve shirt and the Sharpie-drawn logo on a tee. Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s clothes, always styled in a seemingly spontaneous and intuitive way, help build character which is 100% authentic – and mysteriously quirky.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Autumnal. Tory Burch AW22

February 16, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

I kind of can’t believe it, but yes – I loved a Tory Burch collection. I actually don’t remember when was the last time I even looked at her collection. Details from autumn-winter 2022 line-up sneaked into my Instagram feed, and then I browsed through the runway photos, and… it’s really great. The offering sprung from Burch’s observations of New Yorkers’ style throughout the pandemic. The freedom of expression was what she noticed – not trends, but characters. “I see women in New York taking more risks, they’re more creative with the way they put themselves together,” she said after her show. “It’s all ages, and that’s something I really appreciate.” Burch tapped into that energy for her latest collection, which she set against a backdrop of midtown Manhattan, with red light from the New Yorker Hotel sign glancing off the runway, like neon reflecting on rainy streets. The idea, she explained, “was to give women a toolbox; I want them to feel they can take this collection and create their own personality with it.” The variety was the thing. This collection had range: there were tech-knit track jackets worn with high-waisted, tapering pants and voluminous jackets and skirts reined in with dramatic belts. The designer, as many designers in New York this season, doubled down on outerwear. Sasha Pivovarova wore a wool coat on top of a hooded raincoat. Bouclé coats had drop shoulders, for easier layering. All of it skimmed out on low-heeled mules or boots, another reflection of real-life chic. There was nothing as predictable as a cocktail dress. Instead, embellished T-shirts were layered over jersey turtlenecks and Lurex-shot full skirts. Burch also paired embroidered bustiers and baggy pants in a cotton-linen shantung with day-to-night versatility. In all likelihood, it’ll be the lively colored geometric pattern jersey dresses – clingy, cut on the bias for ease – that become the collection’s big movers. For the days when the closet is too daunting, or there’s just not enough time for putting together a look, they’re a one-and-done solution for channeling a confident New York vibe.