ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD SPRING SUMMER 2020 COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK

Rock me Amadeus

Everything is connected, things that apparently have nothing in common with each other suddenly find a connection. This is inspiration, intuition, the human condition. This is what we are, we are connected to the universe.

I hung a picture on the wall. The image of the handle of a door in the shape of a man’s head whose arms unite to form a knocker – toc, toc, alchemy. This vision has turned into a circle that joins the shoulders or hips and flies in the wind, sometimes it’s short, others it’s long.

My first inspiration: the cloud and the image of a 1950s pin-up photographed from below; it seems to be in the sky with cotton balls thrown at her. I like the shape of the clouds that float on the body, clothes that slide over the body, shirts that come down from the hips to the floor. You can wear them backwards or tie them to the hips: do it yourself. We have worked with Wastemark collecting inventories from the best Italian textile companies: reduce, reuse, rethink.

I love volumes; street vendors with their goods tied to the body are walking windows. The shapes explode to form infinite possibilities: shoulders, padded hips, large hair and umbrellas. The support is secured and protected by corsets, which are also fundamental for the fabrics that twirl in Botticelli’s Venus.

For the second season, we worked in collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative using hand-made fabrics in Mali and naturally dyed Bogolan literally “made of land”.

We have renewed the Animal Toe shoes with a new heel that Mozart would like. Tyger, bright burning tyger, in the forests of the night. The 18th century hairstyle, worn by young apprentices, is brilliant. I had never seen creatures like this, they come from another planet. They create a historical and geographical fable of the human race, from microbes to robots.

We support Fauna + Flora in their fight against the protection of the Sumatran tiger from mass extinction. www.fauna-flora.org

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Tags: ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020

Mon, October 7 2019 » Fashion Blog

ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD FALL WINTER 2019 COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK

It is a pleasure to design and I’m fortunate and lucky to work in fashion. In this collection we have reduced the product to its essence. To me and many more, what’s truly sustainable is to repurpose what already exists, materials which lie dormant, also making use of by-products which would normally be thrown away.

Another part which I want to extend is working with Africa and for now, we got some hand-painted fabric made in Burkina Faso, working with the United Nations; and I remembered the skills of the village I grew up in, making house slippers and I used my off-cuts to make these slippers to accompany the collection.

What’s most liberating to me is using fabrics I was collecting, sitting on my treasure for more than 30 years because I loved them and I always thought one day I’ll use them. I’m cooking my leftovers, it’s just a great feeling. The world is constipated, the system needs space, you always need to make room. We over produce, we over consume, we overdo everything. We need space.

We have done a small collection which I find more than eloquent because there is going to be another one in 6 months and one should look forward to that. This is the 7th collection I have done as Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood and I called it that because it was a difficult one – I reached the 7 season hurdle: transfiguration.

Clothes make us feel better, fashion is a tonic, something which refreshes our individuality. There is a sacred value in making beauty. To finish this all off I would like to quote Vivienne and say that, ‘fashion is about eventually being naked.’

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