Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen are in their experimentation mode. No longer bound to uncompromising minimalism they’ve established and refined to razor-sharp perfection throughout the years, they are confidently letting not-that-easy-to-digest edginess to The Row‘s world. Or maybe the most stylish twins in the world are taking a look back at their culture-shifting style from the 2000s? @eljosecriales started that discourse by comparing spring-summer 2025’s grey melange sweater worn over a white ivory slip dress worn over washed blue pants to one of Mary-Kate’s red carpet looks from 2004 that similarly played with layers in a cool, spontaneous, boho manner. That’s the definition of “auto-referential“! Most of the new season offering feels like a very instinctual play with clothes and accessories, never matching or fitting “as it should“, but striking an intriguing balance. Phoebe Philo’s late years at Céline had a similar essence, but the Olsens aren’t copying the British designer as they used to back in the day – they’re doing their own, authentic thing. As they should – they are by now very mature designers, as The Row is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary (the twins started with a t-shirt). And their just-opened shop in Amagansett will certainly sell these plaid shirts, breezy dresses, denim shirts and future-vintage evening dresses like hot buns. Oh, to be awfully rich and buy The Row like daily apparel!
There’s an appealing, sensually charged toughness about Magda Butrym’s collection for resort 2025. The Polish designer’s smokey-eyed and red-lipped glamazons are in a dreamworld, but one that isn’t a saccharine wonderland. A sense of enigmatic chic informs the entire line-up, blurring the lines between daywear and eveningwear, feminine and masculine, precious and utilitarian. The collection’s brave, tough chic mood finds inspiration in cinematic depictions of women in West Berlin during the late 1970s, from Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” remake to Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession“. The first, a perplexing story of a witchy dance school and its female-only cadre and students, informs the collection’s color palette. Rusty-tones, overcast-greens and earthy-ecrus meet intoxicating blood-red – the color of lipstick on the pale faces of Madame Blanc’s dancers, and their nail polish, and the unsettling interiors of the Tanz Akademie. In Possession, the high-pitched fever dream directed by the renowned Polish provocateur, Isabelle Adjani’s character Anna – entangled in an illicit, forbidden romance – storms metro stations and soc-realist neighborhoods in utilitarian, yet feminine dress-coats. These two so female-centered films deliver an unobvious outlook on women, their emotions, sensuality, and most importantly, their sacred power. The lookbook, photographed by Vitali Gelwich, was captured inside Warsaw’s iconic Dom Pod Orłami (“House Under Eagles”). This modernist pearl keeps in its thick, marble walls many untold secrets, from pre-war bank affairs to wild raves of the 1990s. Who knows what rituals happened down these long corridors and hidden staircases? The brute, monumental beauty of the building charges the lookbook with certain mysterious, elusive, even esoteric ambience, one that can be perceived in Guadagnino and Żuławski’s cinematic universes.
In all that highly feminine, yet commanding mood the designer is channeling and refining in her latest offerings, an assortment of no-nonsense, investment-worthy garments: a drab olive-brown jacket with a high, chin-grazing collar styled with matching pair of knitted panties;sensational outerwear in broad-shouldered cut; pleated, wool pants refined by the designer to perfection. But there’s also place for unabashed glam: the eternal style of Milanese sciuras unexpectedly dialogues with the unsung chic of Old Warsaw’s starlets like Zula through a retro-imbued overlap that comes evident in faux fur stoles wrapped around the shoulders, worn over seductive, ruched dresses with built-in corsets. Meanwhile, the two finale pieces of the collection are hooded black dresses in either above-the-knee or floor-sweeping length. They intrigue with minimalist sharpness of cut and the seductive depth of plunging necklines, subverting monastic connotations. As usual in case of Butrym’s style vocabulary, there’s a charming nod to her Slavic heritage. For resort, it comes in form of hand-made lace from Koniaków which is very proudly used in a crocheted body with sharp shoulder-pads, an apron-like skirt, shopper bags, and next season’s ultimate it-accessory: bonnets.
Psst… have you seen the designer’s first ever flagship store that she opened last month in Warsaw? Read about it right here!
Need a Magda Butrym wardrobe update? I’ve got you covered.
It’s a new dawn for Valentino. Gone are the days of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s minimalist sensibility and sharpness of cut. Alessandro Michele’s “surprise” debut collection for resort 2025 is an unabashed return to Valentino Garavani’s 1960s and 1970s opulence and over-the-topness. Is this nostalgia something people really want in 2024? Many wrongfully described the collection as “so Gucci”. The deja vu feeling is valid, but rather it’s “so Alessandro Michele”. But let’s be honest, this line-up could easily pass as any of Michele’s previous collections for the other Italian brand, and you’re really not the only one constantly mistyping Gucci instead of Valentino. More than 170 looks, none really memorable or distinct, is either a result of Michele’s prolificness or his overt maximalism – something I thought he would rethink and refine during his hiatus. When the designer arrived at Gucci, his debut collection – contrived at light speed pace – was a revolution-in-the-making and it shifted the way people dress for seasons ahead. His Valentino debut lacks that radicalness, and feels like a missed opportunity in making a strong point. The dense, thick retromania of this collection makes one feel simply tired.
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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Of all resort shows presented in farfetched destinations this season, it was the seemingly least fussy of them all that truly made an astounding impression. Ian Griffiths is lately doing wonders at Max Mara, but this collection presented in Venice is his best yet. “It’s a magical place”, said the British designer, “at the crossroad between the East and the West. It’s where luxury was born, Marco Polo was a trading genius who seven centuries ago introduced Western culture to the opulence of the Far East through the Silk Road.” The show was held at Palazzo Ducale, a gothic masterpiece so dreamy that John Ruskin, in his book The Stones of Venice, described it as “the central building of the world.” Models paraded at dusk in the external loggia, against the backdrop of San Marco square. The collection hinted at the Venitian flair for opulence and extravagance in the most sumptuous ways. Silk-tasseled belts cinched voluptuous, sweeping cashmere coats at the waist, caftans and billowing dusters had a breezy presence, and capes were enveloping like tabarri, the traditional cloaks worn by Venitian gentlemen in the 18th century. The silhouette was kept long and lean, or short and leggy; as always with Max Mara, decoration was used sparsely, yet the offering had a more elaborate feel than usual. Then, the finale looks: a billowy cape, a round-shaped cocoon, a layered asymmetrical halter dress, and a dramatic opera coat fit for a Fortuny muse were surmounted by towering matching turbans, courtesy of Stephen Jones. Sensational!
Here are a couple of my favourite Max Mara pieces you can shop now…
Resort 2025 is the third collection we see from Chemena Kamali at Chloé, and so far we know for a fact that she really has a knack for revisiting and refreshing the maison‘s codes, from Gaby Aghion’s liberating femininity to Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo’s early 2000s frivolity. For spring, Kamali is taking a closer look at bourgeois chic from Karl Lagerfeld’s era. “There are all these stories to explore that haven’t really been told yet that are part of our history,” she said. This time her mood-board was covered with images of “the Art Deco years of Karl in the 1970s. He furnished the entire apartment he lived in, in Saint Germain, as this Deco masterpiece – everything was in black and gold, and white, cream and gold, and he used to lend it to Vogue and others for shoots. Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, David Bailey, and Deborah Turbeville all shot there.” The billowing, floating volumes, off-the shoulder dresses, balloon-sleeved blouses, and square-necked smocks in diaphanous coin-dot lamé and swirling, pleated metallic florals swiftly teleport you to these days. But there’s also a breath of contemporary air. The boxer-ballet shoe hybrid wedged sneakers Chloé is launching this season (similar walked in a couple of Hannah McGibbon’s runways). “I wanted something that was soft, feminine, comfortable,” Kamali summed up. “And they had to be real. All the women in the office have been test-wearing them.” Collaged from a myriad soft pastel colors in hi-top and low versions, they look like a Chloé hit in the making. Also worth noting: the reissuing of Square Camera handbag with chain handle from Philo’s winter 2003 collection. Whoever still has it in their wardrobe, lucky you!
Collage by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!
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