Woman

Soft Elegance. Jil Sander AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

In a season when designers are desperately targeting Gen-Z, Jil Sander’s Lucie and Luke Meier made clothes for grown-ups. That kind of commitment breeds loyalty in women of a certain demographic and income bracket who feel left out of the fashion conversation (and still love Old Céline). “We were thinking about elegance,” Lucie said backstage. “We really wanted to focus on sculptural tailoring, almost couture-like, but we like this new energy, a very cropped silhouette.” The Jil Sander woman is wearing a wool skirt suit, its jacket sculpted with an hourglass volume and the skirt just peeking out from beneath its hem, or a slightly longer, flippier skirt with a cape-like jacket. Completing the silhouette are Chelsea boots with gold hardware, flat and sturdy. Dresses with the same above-the-knee proportion and flat bows at the shoulders and waist called to mind Pierre Cardin, whose death in late 2020 has precipitated new interest in his brand of 1960s minimalism. There were longer, softer lengths as well, including on a group of black dresses whose special details – a deep-v neckline, say, or voluminous bell sleeves – gave them a lot of cost-per-wear value. The Meiers have made handcrafts (like macramé and crochet) an essential part of their Jil Sander aesthetic. This season they pared that back, featuring only one print of astrological signs on drapey stretch jersey or quilted satin, choosing three-dimensional fabrics with surface appeal, like the bouclé on a pair of short dresses and the finer gauge knit of a long dress with fuzzy mohair sleeves. The exception was the guipure lace they used for a trio of long dresses, including one in a sensational shade of marigold. The white and black versions were shown with tailored single-breasted jackets, which is indeed a very elegant, very grown-up way to approach black-tie.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Hotter Than Hell. Versace AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Versace is the only brand in Milan so far that has (at least) communicated on its social media solidarity with Ukraine and a call for peace. Donatella Versace did the same, which makes me love her even more. This is what independence from luxury conglomerates gives: the freedom of taking a stance.

Another great news: the autumn-winter 2022 collection is so, so good. The designer described the line-up as “an elastic band pulled tight and about to snap back with a build-up of energy”. It was an accurate illustration of how the hyper-glam Versace woman she designs for must feel after two years of horrors like “homecore”, “comfort-wear”, and “WFH dressing”. This collection was the antidote: a tailored, corseted, mini-dressed punch of power to the post-pandemic wardrobe, presented on a shiny red runway with a brilliant original soundtrack that mixed what sounded like Versace’s voice with a throbbing and electrifying beat. For its expert dressmaking, the collection was an exercise in perfecting a few simple elements. One was tailoring: Donatella broadening the shoulders and cinched the waists of suits with voluminous trousers, evoking ’80s power dressing through an amplified lens. Skirt suits in tailoring fabrics juxtaposed a skimpy hemline with big, boxy blazers cut at the same length, while skirt suits in tweeds unravelled at the hems in a polished punk way. Throughout, she stuck to her magic body grammar, accentuating shoulders, waist and hips. Then, nearly every look was based on a corset: as minimal bustiers worn on their own; embedded in mini and ankle dresses; as bustiers in tailoring fabric that matched sartorial trousers; built into wool and rubber coats; evoked within long-sleeved dresses as if a waspie had been styled over them; and – most ingeniously – structured into the waist of a puffer jacket that ballooned over it. If the silhouette those corsets created didn’t already make Versace’s models pose up a storm, Donatella underpinned her looks with skin-tight rubber tops and polished latex leggings, cementing the boudoir mood of the collection.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Do You Even Care? Gucci AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

It’s infuriating how huge brands that preach values of “inclusivity”, “love” and “peace” choose to stay silent in case of Russian invasion of Ukraine. I had a different attitude towards labels that showed their collections and decided to stay silent on the first day of the conflict (like Prada) – everybody was confused. But now is the high time to act, and most of the Western European fashion companies and insiders still pretend to be asleep. Gucci‘s silence is telling – not a single social media post in plain sight that would acknowledge the disheartening situation. Why is that? Kering and other luxury conglomerates are just too scared they won’t sell another pair of shoes to its major customer target, largely located in Russia, which supports Putin’s war crime towards Ukraine. As simple as that.

Alessandro Michele‘s autumn-winter 2022 fashion show failed to share any gesture of solidarity with Ukrainians, even though I thought he would be the first to do that in the industry. Possibly, his good intentions might have been tamed by the upper company structures. The distaste caused by the tone-deafness is one thing. In general, this line-up was one of the most mediocre collections coming from the designer in a while. The message for this collection, entitled “Exquisite Gucci“, was suits for all, with male and female models wearing versions of the Gucci sartorial two-piece. Alongside this focus on tailoring was a collaboration with Addidas Originals, which saw the sportswear brand’s iconic three stripes splashed over sharp cut suits, on leather gloves and baseball caps, or forming a dramatic V down the front of a corset dress. To be honest, most of the looks felt uninspiring, and I feel like we’ve seen enough of fashion collabs with Adidas in the last couple of years.

Back to really important stuff. If you want to spread awareness or help and support Ukraine, here are some useful links:

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ways-to-help-ukraine-conflict/

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/countries/ukraine

https://www.rescue.org/article/how-can-i-help-ukraine

https://www.gov.pl/web/udsc/ukraina-en

Also, big love to independent, small and medium-sized brands like Magda Butrym, Collina Strada and MISBHV that will donate 100% of its profits to aid humanitarian crisis in Ukraine in the following days. Any action counts, big or small!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Run. Sunnei AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

Social commentary always lurks in the background of Sunnei’s practice. The pandemic has offered Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina plenty of open questions to chew on, fashion being rich food-for-thought territory, with game-changing actions still slow to come about within the industry. For starters, fashion’s high-pitched, fast-paced beat hasn’t slowed down (even at the moment when Europe’s peace is under threat), and running from one physical show to the next has become normality again. Collateral effects of frenzy, stress and nerve-racking timetables are part of the picture, despite all the good intentions flaunted when the fashion world was in a state of pandemic shock. Their autumn-winter 2022 show seemed a good occasion for Messina and Rizzo to pick up on our collective scatterbrained state. They rallied their community in an open air set on the outskirts of Milan, where they orchestrated a sort of “performance within the performance” as they called it, with the audience commanded to stand on metal benches, facing the sidewalk near a wall of an industrial building. “We wanted to make people stop for a moment and reflect on what’s happening, especially today, which is such a delicate, disquieting moment,” said the designers. With Russia and Ukraine clashing violently, and war looming on the horizon, the mood was one of uncertainty and worry. Instead of walking, models came running along the wall, while the audience was invited to follow the show in slow motion through their iPhones. As a sort of metaphoric “crystallization of the moment,” as the designers called it, it was quite fitting. As for the collection, it was quite hard to see the details with models running at lightening speed, but the clothes looked fit for such an athletic performance. “We’ve used a new technical fabric that extends and stretches, perfect for layering,” said the designers. They riffed on their core items, “focusing on what we do best, experimenting on making our favorite shapes more extreme and radical, without detracting from their identity and character.” While keeping their offer sleek and minimal, they went quite eclectic, playing with colors and textures with a more tactile appeal on balaclava-capes in furry wool and chenille woven into wavy 3D motifs.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Tactile. Max Mara AW22

| Design & Culture by Ed

This season, some really delightful looks appeared on the Max Mara runway. Backstage, Ian Griffiths presided over a moodboard pinned with images of the work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, who was closely affiliated with the Dada movement. Taeuber-Arp is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York showcasing a prodigious career that spanned genres: textiles, marionettes, interior and architectural designs, furniture, paintings, relief sculptures, and photographs. Griffiths said he was attracted by the way she invested even everyday objects with magic and mystery. “After the last two years, we’re craving magic,” he said. Active between the two World Wars, the Dadaists rejected nationalism and violence, which made her an all too apt muse on a day when Russia attacked Ukraine. Griffiths used the shapes of marionettes Taeuber-Arp made for a restaging of the 18th century play “The King Stag” as templates for his designs; they informed the bulbous silhouettes of short skirts and the articulated arms of sweaters. Whimsy was the desired effect of the teddy bear material, which he cut not just into oversized enveloping coats, but also full skirts both short and long, and even sweatpants. These pieces were juxtaposed by others with a more utilitarian bent. Parachute pants with zips up the calves had a smart adaptability; add a second-skin turtleneck and a tailored jacket and a woman would be ready for anything. All this marched out on gum-soled over-the-knee sock boots, which got the playful/practical balance that Griffiths was after exactly right.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.