her secret garden, all in seersucker…
a place to indulge and amuse …
in a pannier and a robe à la polonaise …
she observes, she promenades …
she is quiet …
until she is not …
in shades of grey, yellow, pink, green and blue …
in navy and gold, and finally in white …
thom browne’s codified east coast prep mixes with 1780s versailles and 1980s punk …
seersucker is reimagined …
in silk taffeta and sheer organdy…
pleated and gathered, embroidered and laminated …
slashed on corsets, frayed on hems …
the eighteenth century robe à la polonaise is draped over a classic pannier …
twisted and turned into something new …
peplum jackets and corsets exaggerate shoulders, hips, and waists …
the thom browne oxford shirt is reinterpreted with a gathered sleeve …
dresses, skirts and trousers take their voluminous forms …
the boned cage sits as an understructure, or is worn on top to become visible …
and beneath, a pair of taffeta bloomers peek through …
her secret garden, a place of fantasy and fun …
for amusing scenes to unfold on embroideries, and tulle trimmings to foam and froth …
heels disappear …
hair goes up, and a little more …
welcome to her secret garden …
she could tell you more, listen closely …
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Tags: SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020, THOM BROWNE, THOM BROWNE SS 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
“The fundamental concept is to illustrate a woman’s power. To show that her spirit is indestructible by natural forces. She can withstand a “meteor shower” both metaphorically and physically speaking”
Virgil Abloh
Unexpected impacts. Evolutionary jolts. Collisions of matter, and ideas.
For Spring, Virgil Abloh tampers with convention, expressing a desire to push the conversations around fashion, streetwear and modern dressing forward. Clothes do not define the Off-White woman; vintage luxury or new, they’re the same. The garments, rather, become tools and materials that help fortify this woman’s dynamism and resilience.
Abloh continues with an inspiration based in nature after Resort, but interjects a new aesthetic element: one of extraterrestrial force, of meteor showers, and of the unlikely beauty in the order-and-chaos they make.
Patterns are twisted and warped; contrasting fabrics are joined; netting and unusual draping methods are fused to generate new surfaces. Spring is not a reset, but rather, a transformation in context and space.
This season sees the introduction of the Meteor Shower Jitney, Spring’s hero piece. The Jitney bag is a core Off-White product, but the Meteor Shower stands apart; it is perforated with holes in a graphic rendering of craters formed by falling rock. It is a non-functioning object (though it comes with a usable pouch), and it challenges the bedrock understanding of what, exactly, a bag is. It instantaneously kicks dust into the proverbial atmosphere of categorical separation; whether carrier, sculpture, or decor item, the Meteor Shower Jitney asserts that Abloh is seeking to further chart the gray areas between creative disciplines. The perforations also set a new branding system for Off-White.
Augmenting the suggestion of shooting stars and the unforeseen, Spring holds a collaboration with Roman and Erwan Bouroullec. The Bouroullec brothers are Paris-based industrial designers, with experience in medias ranging from jewelry to architecture to photography and video. For Off-White, they have applied a linear print—mirroring slices of shale amplified beneath a microscope—to shirting, overcoats, and handbags.
The hole motif also serves as an ironic homage to Abloh’s alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. In the state, athletics fans wear “cheesehead” hats and helmets, as Wisconsin is historically known for its dairy products. The hats are a common, if eccentric, sight at sporting events.
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Tags: OFF-WHITE C/O VIRGIL ABLOH, OFF-WHITE C/O VIRGIL ABLOH SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Wed, October 2 2019 » Fashion Blog
Urgent and uninhibited, the Mugler collection for Spring Summer 2020 ignites a bold discourse of human sexuality in our hypermodernist world. Charting the full spectrum of streamlined shapewear, Casey Cadwallader proposes a sentient representation of the Mugler identity: one granted with the clarity of choice and the freedom of self-expression.
By fusing archival leitmotifs of construction with new developments in garment-making, the collection embodies a liberated, sculptural quality. The historical foundation of the corset is rebuilt as a second skin – now supple and forgiving, it reveals the technical prowess of the Mugler atelier. Encrusted in tailoring, the hourglass silhouette continues as lingerie sheaths with a textured translucence reflected in engineered hosiery and harness gloves.
Controlled volumes counter this delicate armour, from puffed drawstring shells to breezy scarf blazers, slashed column and dropped ruffle skirts. Trousers lift and shape in paneled crepe, tailored wool, and new zipped spiral denim. In a softer play of asymmetric drape, placed ombré prints in shirred jersey and satin separates resolve the collection’s blocked, colour theory – mingling warm and cool shades from acid yellow and cornflower to burgundy, violet or ultra blue.
Sleek chrome accents define footwear and jewellery, as fountain chain switches and laced knifepoint sandals reflect the season’s cerebral sex appeal.
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Tags: MUGLER, MUGLER SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Wed, October 2 2019 » Fashion Blog
Remembrance is altered by time. When data is transmitted from one mind to another –one era to the next – the truth is belied. Through Maison Margiela’s reflections on the digital age, the Défilé co-ed collection for Spring-Summer 2020 pays reverence to history and the lessons it taught us. In the digital age, our memories are hacked: distorted and trivialised through the chaotic noise of the social media debris. The mind becomes a search engine filtering through the latest impression, while wisdom gained from the past gradually gets buried in the news. Stories of hope, heroines and liberation are forgotten as history draws ever closer to repetition.
Detecting a need for mindfulness, creative director John Galliano prompts a wake-up call, challenging the senses to discern between memory and oblivion; real and unreal. Informed by ideas conceived in the Artisanal ateliers, the collection proposes key pieces rooted in conversations between the past, present and future. Tailoring rendered in the hack print – a motif resembling the accidental slip of a print machine – manifests as heavy tweeds or herringbones from the classic men’s wardrobe. In reality, they are trompe l’oeil prints uncovered by the white ‘hack’ element through which the fabric’s true identity is revealed. The illusion nods at the Artisanal theme of projection. Here, projective filtrage – the impression of light-projected imagery adapted into prints on translucent fabrics – translates into trench coats veiled in printed organza, triggering a sense-obscuring confusion of layers and light.
In a make-do and mend proposal of upcycling, holes – hand-cut or industrialised – riddle coats and dresses. Employing the technique of nomadic cutting, garments magnify and migrate on the body, in supersized trousers morphed into a strapless dress, or a leather trench coat cut into a corset. Elements from uniforms generate memories and associations of comfort: utility jackets appear in transformative form, while knitted vests and jumpers accentuate a co-educational sentiment. Short all-in-ones mutated with Watteau backs recall the eveningwear of a time when glamour, lest we forget, was often tantamount to hope.
Materials
Fabrics evoke the textures of the classic men’s wardrobe but are not always what they seem: light cottons and wools appear printed in the optical illusions of tweeds and herringbones, while traditional trench coats are swathed in printed organza. Indications of upcycling materialise in a Glam Slam coat with mattress lining, in a faux leather utility jacket, as well as faux reptile effects that conjure ideas of technology packaging. Tailoring wools are contrasted by materials from noble dressmaking: crin and satin are employed in suits, and taffeta and duchesse satin appear in all- in-ones with Watteau backs. Knitwear features in vests.
Technique
Employed in tailoring, the trompe l’oeil hack print makes light cotton or wool resemble the textures of fabrics from the classic men’s wardrobe such as tweeds or herringbones, only to interrupt the mirage with a slip-style white ‘hack’ revealing the true nature of the fabric. Projective filtrage features in coloured trench coats veiled in printed organza that confuses the senses. Holes form a predominant motif, either hand-cut or industrialised, nodding at a contemporary idea of polka dots and a proposal for upcycling. Techniques from haute couture are used in the fusion of all-in-ones with Watteau backs native to high dressmaking. Nomadic cutting signifies the migration of a garment from one part of the body to another such as trousers that become a dress, while flat-cutting appears in jackets that look one-dimensional until worn.
Palette
Colours inherent to the humble men’s wardrobe – black, brown, navy, white, beige and grey – are joined by those known from uniforms: olive, moss green and bordeaux. They are elevated by noble colours associated with haute couture and eveningwear, from seafoam to ochre and cinnamon.
Accessories
Introduced in the Artisanal collection, the Snatched – a new genderless bag by Maison Margiela – debuts in a smaller volume. Taking its name from contemporary slang for good looks, the fold-over pochette features cut asymmetric angles and a handle through which the hand snatches on to it. The bag appears in red patent bridle leather and white calfskin. The 5AC, a Maison Margiela classic, enters into the collection in faux crocodile tan leather. Knee-high boots with curved heels – in black or brown patent leather or white-painted faux python – build on those from the Artisanal collection alongside Mary-Janes in black, brown or white patent leather. Sailor collars upcycled from blankets feature as scarves, while hats pay homage to millinery native to haute couture.
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Tags: MAISON MARGIELA, MAISON MARGIELA SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Wed, October 2 2019 » Fashion Blog
Courrèges © Copyright 2019
Tonight, Courrèges presents its Spring-Summer 2020 collection on the Canal Saint Martin, Paris. With guests flanking its’ banks, a boat glides down the canal — wrapped in smoke and light with the vocalist Lafawndah serenading from its bow — a loosely choreographed spectacle transforming this most Parisian waterway quartier into public performance space.
In collaboration with Jeff Mills, the music moves from flowing to fixed; from the river to the street: as the boat docks and first looks disembark.
This relay between the concrete and the fluid; liberation and legacy, drives a collection grounded in self-styled categories: from studies in utility outerwear cut in the signature Courrèges architecture — but in patchworks of texture and color; to future-folksy knits in a generous mesh, hewn in bold orange black and white. Soft dressing in flowing gingham is dotted, and abuts an offering of tailored ensembles and concise separates: some lacerated with immaculately finished cut-ins which curve across the body or open in soft triangles to the chest.
The heart of SS20 is the materials. When we relaunched the line in 2018 with the initiative Fin Du Plastique , we pledged to discontinue the use of petrol based plastics — setting ourselves the challenge of replacing the house’s most iconic material: our textured vinyl.
We are pleased to have discovered an innovative algae based vinyl which uses 10 times less plastic — but for us it is not so much this discovery, as the fact that we made our commitment without knowing we would find an alternative that is the true calling of sustainability. Our new vinyl is not perfect — it is better. Sustainability is not a destination but a process: it is about creativity – not austerity; pleasure – not abstinence; today – not tomorrow.
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Tags: COURREGES, COURREGES SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Wed, October 2 2019 » Fashion Blog
Tue, October 1 2019 » Fashion Blog
ANGLE
For Spring-Summer 2020, Kunihiko Morinaga blurs the boundaries of 2D and 3D, recasting Instagram fashion images IRL and translating digital distortions into surrealist, wearable garments.
Preppy classics – chinos, raw denim, beige trench coats, navy blazers with crest patches, blue Oxford shirts, argyle knits, houndstooth coats, pleated skirts, white logo Ts, and cricket sweaters – parade by three by three, each one reproducing a different visual angle
as if viewed from above, below or the side.
Asymmetrical pieces twisting around the body and spilling forward on tops or curved, shortened hems underscore the notion of visual perspectives. Western classics adopt Japanese lines in warped, reconfigured constructions.
Strong shoulders on a triangular club blazer-meets-kimono telescope to a narrow waist, as if seen from above, while sleeves knot like an obi belt.
The high concept extends to the smallest details, from the morphing gradient scales of belt buckles and buttons on blazers and shirts to accessories with a new kind of slant, like flat canvas totes, quilted leather handbags, and pins and earrings shaped like side views of sunglasses and rings.
In today’s digital-junkie world, what’s real or virtual, normal or anomaly, trompe l’oeil or sleight of hand is all simply a matter of perspective.
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Tags: ANREALAGE, ANREALAGE SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Tue, October 1 2019 » Fashion Blog
Ottolinger’s SS20 collection – clever and strange, lyrical and addictive. Featuring hand-dyed colors, hypnotic denim finishings and evocative photo prints in collaboration with the German artist Lucie Stahl as well as traditional Swiss gingham and tomato drawings by the painter Georgia Gardner Gray.
Reconstructed premium Nike Air Max 90 are turning Ottolinger’s handwork into a whole different story and open a new world for Nike and Ottolinger’s DNA of sport, craft and innovation. Dreamlike CBD treasures on the signature ceramic bags and the first Ottolinger x KannaSwiss CBD lipstick narrate grand space epics and painting a magnificent portrait of the modern women in a busy world and imagined near future.
“The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang – a punchy little story, perfect in its pace and length, delivers a hammer-blow of a punchline. The entire story is written as an interview between a reporter and an engineer who has designed a train which uses wormholes to pass through the spacetime continuum and deliver its passengers home for the Lunar New Year on time.
The conversation is witty and whimsical; the dichotomy at play is fun and fluid; and when the engineer asks his final question, he is posing it to us, the reader, asking us why we often seem in such a rush to reach life’s finish line. To use a short, simple, and playfully funny story to present a philosophical message that, while not breaking any new ground, invites at least a few moments of serious pondering, is highly appreciated and exactly what we need in our everyday life. (Text by Will Harris)
Ottolinger SS20 is bringing exactly this fantastic realism into the everyday. The special extra moment – it’s the CBD effect for the busy Ottolinger women to relax.
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Tags: OTTOLINGER, OTTOLINGER SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Tue, October 1 2019 » Fashion Blog
Marine Serre © Copyright 2019
Imagine… By hiding in caves and shelters deep underground, small but illustrious groups have survived the Apocalypse – the climate wars, the heatwaves, mass extinction. Closely knit together by their past experiences, and their shared trouble under the old regime, they are coming out of their hide-outs, becoming aware of themselves, in the wasteland of oil and water left behind by those coming before them.
Temperature has gone up radically, but more self-confident than ever, they adapt, and codify their futurist-shamanic styles, their transformative themes – to birth several clans, across generations, species, and genders. For the first of these, black is the preferred colour before all others.
Moiré uniforms, leather embossed pants and shaped dresses, oily raincoats, shaped black satin looks. Black, referring to rebellion, radicalism, and autonomy – but also maturity, simplicity, abstinence. A second adapts tailoring to the new conditions, with a range of red and brown jacquard styles, toward a desert scuba-djellaba dress made of fluid red silk scarf.
The third of the communities entirely repels all ways of the old establishment, and their outdated nature-culture divide, aiming for deep spiritualist bonds across the entities. They do with what they find. Crocheted knitted tablecloth are serially turned in dresses and tops. Bed sheets and curtains of the old world become daily dresses. Former nightgowns, laces and old wool knitted shawls are transfigured into long white multi-layered robes.
For a fourth, the world has become so hot, their tough executive tailored suits are made out of towel… For those with a careful eye: water is indeed seeping through everywhere, and with it, the suggestion of ongoing evolution and hybridization. Morphing forward, to the next stratagem – mechanic or biological, it is not known, and what is the difference? The fifth and last, Marée Noir SS20, this alien Seraphim… the amphibian Queen emerges from it.
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Tags: MARINE SERRE, MARINE SERRE SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Tue, October 1 2019 » Fashion Blog
Tue, October 1 2019 » Fashion Blog
