Oh, Marc. Thank you for reminding us all about the absolute joy of fashion.
With his pre-NYFW, less is more-production show, the designer sparks bold, unashamed happiness. Bubbly silhouettes. Cropped proportions. Big sequins. Bigger than life ball-dresses and teenie-tiny cardigans. Lego colors. This is fashion that doesn’t take itself seriously – but is far from being non-sense. Inspired with legendary women, from Rei Kawakubo to Queen of Hearts, this is Marc Jacobs’ ode to courage, beauty and uncompromising hope in better tomorrow.
“With precious freedom we dream and imagine without limitation… not to escape from reality but to help navigate, understand, and confront it, exploring through curiosity, conviction, compassion, and love.”
Thank you.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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When the news broke that Peter Copping is taking Lanvin under his wings, a collective sigh of relief went through the industry. The absolutely talented designer, known for his deliciously refined stints at Nina Ricci and Oscar De La Renta, is a master of supreme elegance and chic femininity. And Lanvin – the oldest operating French maison – just needed a person like him after all these years of creative confusion that started since Alber Elbaz’s departure back in 2015. Yes, Lanvin was steadily falling into oblivion for a decade.
Peter’s debut collection was a beautiful return to form – his and the brand’s. It felt like a much-needed moment of true savoir-faire – especially after the embarrassingly dishonest, faux-elegant Jacquemus outing (in which the designer knocked off everything from Pieter Mulier’s Alaia to Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta on the way) that took place just a couple of hours before.
The unquestionable success of Copping’s autumn-winter 2025 collection lies in the effortlessness with which approached Jeanne Lanvin’s legacy. There are no literal references to her 1920s silhouettes or archaic-looking eveningwear (a huge mistake both Bouchra Jarrar and Bruno Sialelli, Copping’s predecessors, did during their blurry tenures). What’s present is a sense of understated modernity shaped by artisan techniques, unpretentious tailoring and richness of materials (these velvets! those crushed-pleats!). The finale dresses – especially the gold number – are just what the red carpet needs today.
This is a great beginning of a Parisian rebirth.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Introducing Magda Butrym’s pre-fall 2025 collection: a romantic, chic take on grunge.
Captured by Robin Galiegue and styled by Jacob K, the latest lookbook embodies real attitude and powerful sensuality – two elements that deeply inspire the Polish designer. The collection’s gritty, tough-at-heart energy is contrasted with touches of Slavic romanticism, a defining hallmark of the label.
The pre-fall 2025 collection thrives on contrasts, weaving together baby-doll silhouettes and porcelain-inspired florals with utilitarian aged leathers and charismatic, menswear-inspired silhouettes. It’s a dialogue between the refined and the rebellious, proper and raw. This is the spirit of grunge: the courage to clash unexpected style elements and finding utmost pleasure in playing with taste conventions.
The collection’s fearless essence was sparked by the documented style of grunge icons: PJ Harvey’s breezy vintage shifts, Courtney Love’s stage slip-dresses, Juliette Lewis’ broken-glamour and Kora’s unorthodox manner of dressing. Real women inspire Magda Butrym, so it was essential for the designer to convey authentic attitude – not just in the spontaneous layering of a masculine black leather vest over a delicate sage-green floral chiffon dress but also in the models’ dynamic, lively poses choreographed by Pat Boguławski in the lookbook.
Beneath the grunge-inspired layers, however, lies a space for unapologetic elegance – in its own way an act of rebellion in today’s fast-paced world. Statuesque refinement takes shape in a semi-sheer evening gown crafted from wire-structured silk, evoking the soft, sculptural beauty of a blossoming petal – or the calla lilies immortalized by Robert Mapplethorpe, the maverick artist celebrated for his erotically charged and groundbreaking work. Polka-dotted noble silks, ruched dresses, billow-y skirts, and the cascading drapes of earthy, mocha-toned eveningwear embody undone femininity – a grunge perspective compellingly reimagined by the designer.
Magda Butrym’s enduring fascination with Slavic heritage is vividly present in the pre-fall 2025 collection, manifested through unexpected handmade crochet details. A semi-sheer crochet skirt adorned with floral doilies surprises with mini-pannier padding. Lace embellishes the bustier and hemline of a floral slip dress and peeks out from beneath leather shorts, while the grunge-inspired bride-to-be wears a white crochet veil. The collection also revisits the headscarf – a quintessentially Slavic code. Reimagined in butter-soft leather, knitted mélange, or faded floral prints, the updated babushka look exudes sharp, feminine chic.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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The Row‘s autumn-winter 2025 outing feels like Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen‘s comfort zone. There’s evidently less experimentation with form and a radical return to minimalism they have already polished to perfection years ago.
The new season images were photographed by Mark Borthwick, whose artful direction of movement and split-frame compositions lead around the season’s more straightforward silhouettes. Some are deceptively simple; see the rounded sleeves of a blouse that ripple down the arms when worn, or the double-layered coat with an exposed lining. Some are legitimately simple, such as the relaxed cuts of several men’s pieces. Meanwhile, tailoring is treated with a fluid touch.
What worries is the Olsens’ obsession with Martin Margiela’s Hermès: they love this moment in fashion so much that they forget the line between inspiration and imitation. And that’s not a very The Row thing to do.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Ponte is so much more than a fashion brand. Although it focuses on clothes, these garments have more to do with a Meret Oppenheim-kind of surreal approach to applied arts than, say, haute couture (although some of the techniques conceptualized and materialized by the founder of the brand are just unthinkable). But I’m not sure Harry Pontefract, the London-based creative who views this project as “ongoing body of work” that dates back to his days at Central Saint Martins, would want to call it an art project. Ponte is… Ponte.
“Contradictory” seems to be a fitting term that classifies Pontefract’s practice. He might describe a look a “sort of a Chanel Catherine Deneuve suit” or “the most wrong cocktail dress in the world,” but at the same time he values the power of interpretation and believes that how people “read” his designs reveal much about themselves. The spring-summer 2025 collection can definitely be read in various ways, especially in terms of biography the object – in this case, the provenance of used materials in these striking, body-transforming coats, shawls and dresses. Look one was made with raw fleeces delivered from known sources. All the shearling came from a business down the street from the designer. The textile used for the pink shirt and pants is the lining of military sleeping bags. Vintage M65 army jackets were repurposed into not-so-basic suits. “Once you start to take them apart and they have the memories of whoever’s been wearing them in all the seams and everything, they’re such loaded garments. Even just doing something in that color, never mind out of old jackets, is going to be loaded”, Pontefract says. In the end, clothes are about codes and signals. I think not many contemporary designers have that in mind anymore. Another thing that stuns about the creative’s approach to fashion is his deep interest in the ephemeral. A dress painstakingly covered in 24 karat gold leaf and hand-felted shearlings (which were sewn to sheer tulle… mind-blowing!), will change and deteriorate in not such a long time, making one think of Ana Mendieta’s “Silueta” series. There’s something animalistic about this collection. Even brutal: like the sheepskin body covering the entire body in a intriguingly fetishistic way. “It’s human nature and it’s primal, that’s what I’d say about the collection“, summed up mastermind behind this absolutely transfixing brand.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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