INSPIRATIONS
Nocturnal Glamour. Evoking the sultry smokiness of the femininity conjured by the make-up of Serge Lutens. London’s Camden Palace and Mud Club and an expression of the many schools of style that a club night might convene. Hard romantic. The Flamboyance of the night. The mystery of elegance. A ray of shadow.
A Theatrical Party Girl / Bella Donna / Vamp / Iconoclast. Familiar styles heightened for the night, from punk, rockabilly, disco, liberty and dark Hawaiian prints, 1930′s Hollywood, 80′s Japan, matt minimalism and shimmering maximalism. Boots from Kinky Stiletto to Glam rock platforms.
FORM
A gathering of silhouettes: the variety of night. Men’s tailoring – sleek to oversize – to the sheer elongated and feminine. Wools and cottons of the city and country. From subtle and discreet to the extravert and exaggerated. From tightly wound to louche comfort, peignoir to suiting. Saharienne, one piece overalls, sheath dress, rubberised trench coat. Plisse soleil, batwing evening dresses, capes.
COLOURS
Night and dusk and day. Shadowy matt and shine. Shades of wine. Verdant acids. Cognac, Bucolic greens and blues, Traditional tartans. Purple, lilac, beetle, orange, olive, emerald, lapis, gun metal.
FABRICS
Matt & Metals, Translucent latex, Traditional velvets and Devoré, faux shearling, Urban, rustic, diaphanous, raw denim, crepe e soie, satin, quilting, georgette, Bonded wool bouclé. Luxurious poplin.
PRINT & EMBELLISHMENT
Dark Hawaii. Python. Tattoo. Florals – exaggerated Iris. Ruching, feathers, iridescent circles, biker studs, sequins and micro beading. Fringing, bugle beading, 3D flowers adorn cuffs and hems.
ACCESSORIES
Boots: Kinky Patent and Suede Spikes to Glam platforms in leather and Jacquards. Glittering crochet flower chokers. Leather Biker and Diamante rope belts. Ball & asymmetrical earrings, Black lace stockings, faux fox stoles, Gold spheres necklaces. Soft bags in leather and jacquards. Voluminous alpaca knit scarves.
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Tags: DRIES VAN NOTEN, DRIES VAN NOTEN FW 2020, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020
Tue, March 3 2020 » Fashion Blog
Emphasising eros, the Mugler collection for Fall Winter 2020 is a seductive evolution of Casey Cadwallader’s triumphant, body- positive futurism. With a new decadence, he plunges further into glamour. A confident sensuality erupts in a game of reveal and conceal.
Sleek and studied with a sinuous ease, silhouettes embrace curves from the obtuse arch of a raglan sleeve to the acute hourglass forms of techno mesh. The inky palette shimmers with iridescence, swelling through chocolate, indigo and sky blue to lipstick shades of vermillion and fuchsia pink.
Shrugging off the shoulders, storm trenches in lambskin or melton wool and wrapped mannish shirts unveil a shadow play of en- gineered catsuits and bodies worn with bootcut trousers, flared minis and moto pants. Cropped jackets frame the bust, reflecting the scuba basque and corset constructions of Mugler tailoring in fluid crepe, tiger jacquard and polished leather.
The second-skin effect of trompe l’oeil nudity is replicated in stretch rib mock necks and point hem skirts, culminating in sheer sheath dresses glinting with silver cabochons and mirrored embroidery.
Complementing the season’s fearless Mugler attitude, ultra-point boots and pumps feature an inclined stiletto or an inverted wedge heel, as circuit chokers, hoops and cuffs are shot with a constellation of metal pearls.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020, MUGLER, MUGLER FW 2020
Tue, March 3 2020 » Fashion Blog
For Winter 2020 Anthony Vaccarello revisits Saint Laurent’s well-behaved and overly bourgeoise elegance of the Nineties. Between gilded salons and nocturnal places inhabited by well mannered girls and bad boys, the Saint Laurent woman loves to take risks, she wears lace and cachemire with latex.
Fabrics from the archives have strident and borderline colors, their houndstooth, panther and polka dots patterns contrast with the shiny texture of latex. Everything is a matter of tension between discipline and pleasure, Saint Laurent’s chic is always born from imperfection.
I wanted to find the balance between control and abandonment, the tension between discipline and pleasure that defines the modernity of Saint Laurent. For Saint Laurent, elegance is mandatory but it also goes with perversity; one without the other would only be plain bourgeoisie or vulgarity.
Mister Saint Laurent had a very peculiar vision of bourgeoisie, he almost rejected it. I was really stimulated by that tension this season, it made me want to break the codes that are too conventional. Saint Laurent is about danger.
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Tags: FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020, SAINT LAURENT, SAINT LAURENT FW 2020
Mon, March 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
BUILD AND BREAK. BREAK AND REBUILD.
Introducing a fresh spin on diversity and sustainability, Kunihiko Morinaga builds on his playful approach to clothing construction through silhouettes composed of interchangeable, modular blocks.
From the trench coat to the MA-1 bomber, each garment is pieced together from an assemblage of geometric volumes – squares, rectangles, triangles, columns and semicircles – made to identical dimensions and proportions. Each section can then be detached and re-attached onto other pieces from the collection thanks to a system of snaps.
Cuffs transform into collars, trench sleeves clip onto the body of a lace dress, and a bodice flips to form the bottom of a skirt in this conceptual collection of pick ‘n’ mix hybrids. Possible combinations of colors and textures appear endless, spanning eco-fur, denim, Aran knit and sections of down-filled nylon puffers. The theme also extends to shoe heels made of stacked cubes.
Reconstructed from blocks of primary colors and textile patterns like argyle, houndstooth and graphic florals, voluminous silhouettes adopt a couture attitude as the designer reconfigures traditional geometric Japanese pattern-making techniques on generic wardrobe staples in bold, fun and versatile shapes. An exercise in child’s play.
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Tags: ANREALAGE, ANREALAGE FW 2020, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020
Mon, March 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
“It doesn’t matter where we start from1…” Carla Lonzi, Autoritratto, 1969.
Autobiography, self-portrait, story. Associating places, images, words. Freely, with fresh eyes. For this fall-winter 2020-2021 ready-to-wear collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri maps out an atlas of emotions through the prism of her teenage diary. Two photos of her mother transport her back to this time in her life, a laboratory brimming with possibilities of what the future may hold.
Images reappear, including photos of actresses who served as inspiration for clients of her mother’s couture atelier, as well as for the Creative Director herself, who used fashion as a way of asserting herself, of rebelling, and communicating to others how she wanted to be perceived. Next came other photos from the past that she revisits with her vision today: Germana Marucelli’s studio in Milan, designed by artist Paolo Scheggi; that of Mila Schön by Ugo Mulas and, lastly, portraits of Carla Accardi.
This arborescent diagram inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri’s very own The Little Dictionary of Fashion2, with jeans, as well as the checks that Monsieur Dior was so fond of. “I love checks. They can be fancy and simple; elegant and easy; young and always right3.” Checks resurface on an ensemble designed by Marc Bohan: it’s this outfit, with the motif placed on the bias, that inspired the structure of the collection’s skirts. There’s also the pea coat and pleated skirts.
Little collars with ties. Black and white. All this is at the heart of a perfectly balanced collection. A polka dot scarf found in the Dior archives serves as the starting point for a series of dresses in various lengths that explore the print’s infinite possibilities. As Christian Dior writes in his The Little Dictionary of Fashion: “I would say the same about dots as about checks. They are lovely, elegant, easy and always in fashion.3” Not to mention fringes, which provide mobile ornamentation on long skirts. Knitwear spans all the wardrobe essentials: sweaters, jackets, skirts, and pants.
The show venue was designed in collaboration with the Claire Fontaine collective, which has exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. The museum is also home to the archives of Carla Lonzi, a charismatic figure who was an art critic before committing to the feminist cause. “Io Dico Io – I Say I 4”, the title of an upcoming exhibition dedicated to Italian women artists, supported by Dior, becomes the starting point for a series of manifesto-like phrases.
Evoking these words in English – “I say I” – right at the show’s entrance brings to life a story of powerful self-assertion. They are the symbol of a joyful singularity, as well as a creative and collective way of approaching the multiple aspects of feminine subjectivity — and the infinite project that femininity represents.
1 In Italian: “Cominciamo da un punto qualunque…” 2 In reference to the dictionary published by the founding couturier in 1954. 3 Excerpt from The Little Dictionary of Fashion by Christian Dior. 4 “Io Dico Io – I Say I” is the title of an exhibition which will be held at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art from 23 March to 21 June 2020. Produced with Dior’s support, it is loosely based on the feminist manifesto of Carla Lonzi, which inspired this collection and the pieces designed for the show.
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Tags: DIOR, DIOR FW 2020, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020
Mon, March 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
Marine Serre © Copyright 2020
MIND MELANGE MOTOR
Imagine Dune: humans have spread out over a series of inter-connected, life supporting planets. Their styles are way beyond what we know today – theirknowledge has evolved, their ability to comprehend has enlarged. They are able to travel between worlds, using a mysterious Mélange…
A Mind that Mélanges references, like a Motor. A Motor that Mélanges Minds. In this cosmos, creativity reigns. In this pluriverse, the uncanny, ambiguous, and obtuse are considered qualities, signalling realism, refined style, and insight. The hallucinatory endlessness of possibilities grasped, observed, faced, with eyes wide open.
A Motored Mind Mélange.
Land on a white planet, at night, where reflective moons tremble amidst snowy embroidered tablecloths and cushion covers, assembled forming flare djellaba’s and dresses. A distant explosion announces sharp houndstooth business armours, led by a double-breasted dress-coat, as a memory of our past in a thousand years from now. But the thread becomes softer until a comforted black and fuchsia knit intervenes, a couple in vibrant yoga activewear and pillow boa’s, walking across at ease, on a hybrid babusch-sportshoe – not forgetting their string bags and drinking bottle.
Tumbling deep down into the futurist wormhole, a black ball-skirted messenger appears, with glove-bags carrying her navigation device – for a type of steering devoid of linear notions of time, way beyond Euclidian space. Where we dare not look: a guardian of keys, a Reverend Sister-hoodie introduces a tribe of hunter- gatherers in faux-fur bedcovers, shaped with leather, next to a clan of regenerated knitwear.
Night turns day. Temperatures rise to an absolute maximum… A dug-up denim in sanded sunburned yellow birth a carpet-based family. The closer to reality, the more malleable it becomes, and the closer we get to the self-conscious hands from a range of child-magicians in burned psychedelic moons, or acid green-yellow silk scarves.
The sleeper must awaken – and when she does, the dry land passes. A fertile fuchsia flower bursts into the open, and a new generation takes over.
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Tags: FALL WINTER MEN 2020, FALL WINTER WOMEN 2020, MARINE SERRE, MARINE SERRE FW 2020
Mon, March 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
