Tue, February 18 2020 » Fashion Blog
Tue, February 18 2020 » Fashion Blog
LOUIS VUITTON FALL WINTER 2020 MEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Streetwear is a label freely adopted and rejected by Virgil Abloh. Through the contemporary breakdown of dress codes, the popular idea of streetwear calls for a redefifinition of the term itself. Today, streetwear characterises the clothes we actually wear and the way we wear them.
For the Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2020 collection, men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh studies the evolving anthropology of the suit and the reprogramming of traditional dress codes.
Tailoring and the tapered silhouette – the fifirm symbols of convention, trade and success – depart their corporate comfort zone: twisted and turned, the dress codes of an old world are neutralised, re-appropriated and embraced for a progressive joie de vivre. Don’t let your day job defifine you.
Employing his evolving premise of boyhood at Louis Vuitton, Virgil Abloh investigates the lifelong relationship formed by adolescent and young men with shirting and suiting. It is material and fifigurative exercise in freedom, presented within the familiar constrictions of tailoring.
Surrealism is the instinctive act of making the ordinary extraordinary. The abstraction of the familiar expands our routine horizons and makes us see the world through unfazed eyes. Virgil Abloh applies the mechanics of the surreal to rewind the clock on our collective age-inflflicted comprehension.
Gazing at the world through the optics of a child – of an adolescent or a young man – is tantamount to fifirst impressions, to the purity of mind and the refreshing optimism of naivety. The turn of a decade heralds an appetite for fresh motivations.
Through a childlike perspective, the phenomena and traditions we take for granted are invigorated and elevated. Hovering over our heads like the ceiling of an age-old chapel or an everlasting fifilm set, the clouds in the sky appear dreamlike and infifinite: Heaven on Earth.
Broken clocks, engineered to spin backwards, are still right twice a day. The suit – a man’s mundane corporate uniform – is de- and recoded into a symbol of craft and creativity. As part of the set in the Jardin des Tuileries, the traditional tools of the artisan are magnifified into lionised sculptures; the icons of tradition honoured and changed with equal enjoyment.
Mon, February 17 2020 » Fashion Blog
DIOR FALL WINTER 2020 MEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Past, present, couture. For the Dior men’s winter 2020-2021 collection, artistic director Kim Jones draws on the Dior archives and iconography to celebrate the house’s timeless elegance. A journey to the heart of haute couture and a tribute to Judy Blame, a pivotal figure and a symbol of creativity that always looks to the future.
The silhouettes explore values of excellence and authenticity, evoking fashion not just as a finished product but as a creative process. Clothes, shoes and accessories sport engineered zips that enhance their construction, highlighting details and cut as an ode to christian Dior’s love of architecture. The Dior oblique canvas is revisited in beaded embroideries, while the Dior logo is pierced with a safety pin — a nod to Judy Blame’s diy-inspired style.
House codes, like reminiscences of haute couture, are embodied in the moiré effects of silk, embroideries, and the arabesque motifs and paisley patterns that make Dior’s heritage so rich. Opera gloves complete each look and buttons covered in fabric — like those on the iconic bar jacket — appear alongside a panorama of memories:
Shades of gray and blue, plays on volume, and pleats and draping that reference flou and tailoring techniques. Accessories evoke the mid-20th century, a turning point in fashion history. Shoes have a classic allure, reflecting the exceptional leather craftsmanship that represents another aspect of Dior’s heritage. The saddle is revisited in new, ever more fluid forms as the soft saddle; bags recall graphic briefcases and camera bags.
Crafted in polished calfskin, they come in a discreet palette of black, camel-vicuña and navy blue, and feature the signature Dior oblique motif enhanced with beading or in a handmade tapestry version. Drawing inspiration from the toile de jouy motif that decorated christian Dior’s first boutique — called
“colifichets” — the now-signature motif has been joined by the “toile de judy”, designed in collaboration with the trust Judy Blame foundation and based on the artist’s revolutionary work.
Jewelry designed by Yoon Ahn features reinterpretations of Judy Blame pieces, through metallic elements engraved and embossed with the Dior logo, and adorned with cannage or lily of the valley motifs. Berets by house milliner Stephen Jones pay tribute to parisian culture and the pioneering buffalo movement of the 1980s. Rich in meaning and creative modernity, this dialogue between the legacies of Dior and Judy Blame affirms, more than ever, the timeless power of savoir-faire.
Mon, February 3 2020 » Fashion Blog
Mon, February 3 2020 » Fashion Blog
Mon, February 3 2020 » Fashion Blog
HERMÈS FALL WINTER 2020 MEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Radical. Pure lines form ample shapes and generous proportions. In counterpoint, warm fabrics create a topography of sensuality and depth. The designs assert their graphic power. The garment’s lining — its functional double sidedness — comes fully to light, almost hypnotically, with a flick of the wrist. From a chromatic field in chiaro-oscuro — backlit peat, clay, ebony, sepia, and hazelnut — a luminous winter springs forth. Nighttime with shades of brown and black.
COLOURS
Camel, off-white, rope, hazelnut, peat, chocolate, ebony, tuscany, vanilla, linden tree, clay, steel, flannel, coal, charcoal, black.
LINES AND FABRICS
Parkas with removable hood and sweatshirts in technical calfskin, reversible in Toilovent. Parkas and blousons with Rêve hypnotique ribbing in rubberized lambskin, reversible in printed Toilovent, zipped windbreakers in rubberized lambskin, reversible in cashmere broadcloth. Straight coats, straight blousons with high collar, zipped windbreakers and trousers in deerskin. Sweatshirts and blousons with high collar in reversible babylamb. Bomber blousons, belted coats and parkas with knitted collar in merino.
Zipped overshirts, zipped sweatshirts with hood, blousons with ribbing and jogging pants in Toile-Ice. Straight and double-breasted coats in two-ply water-repellent cashmere, facing in calfskin or silk. Double-breasted coats in whipcord or two-ply water-repellent cashmere, double front in satin. Parkas and sweatshirts with hood in reversible Toilovent, printed with Rêve hypnotique. Raincoats in compact cotton serge, facing in calfskin.
Straight blousons, parkas with removable hood and sleeveless vests in technical cotton serge with leather detail. Blousons with ribbing, sweatshirts with removable lining and straight blousons with knit collar embroidered with Fleurs graffiti in technical water-repellent cotton serge with leather detail. Three-button suits and trousers bottoms with tightening straps, in padded wool flannel with pinstripe stitching. Straight and double-breasted suits with double contrasted front in wool flannel or in wool and mohair canvas.
Pullovers with zipped high neck and mock turtle neck in Fragments de couleur laine 180’s wool. Turtle neck pullovers in 180’s wool, Rêve hypnotique detail. Pullovers with zipped neck in Fleurs graffiti cashmere. Oversize pullover with high neck in wool and cashmere with maxi herringbone. Oversize Mix & patch turtle neck pullovers and cardigans in cashmere with lambskin details. Turtle neck pullovers in wool, cashmere and alpaca with shearling effect.
Large shirts with knotted, high or supple collars, in cotton and cashmere with herringbone, or plain cotton poplin or cotton poplin printed with Rêve hypnotique or embroidered with Fleurs graffiti motif. Wide-legged trousers with pleats or with patch pockets and bottoms with tightening strap in compact cotton serge or cotton drill.
Sun, February 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
BALMAIN FALL WINTER 2020 MEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
It’s the last few hours before the runway. In a chaotic-yet-scheduled rush, the final stitches, castings, mixes, seating everything is all coming together, as it somehow always manages to do, in a jumble before each show. As I sit in the Balmain showroom, I watch the many different teams buyers, marketers, PRs and partners flip through the racks. And, I keep hearing repeated references to classic bourgeois French styles.
It’s true, you can definitely spot riffs on those signature codes of the upper class including rich silk scarf patterns, soft cashmeres and the classic navy pea coats. That’s inevitable. This is France, after all, and these are looks that Paris fashion houses, in general, and Balmain in particular, have always known how to expertly play with for the perfect aspiration-meets-fashion collections.
Those showroom comments push me to reflect on themes and questions that have long obsessed me, ever since my childhood, in perhaps what is the most bourgeois city in all of France, Bordeaux. As a child “né sous X” an orphan who did not know his origins—naturally, I grew up fascinated by questions regarding heritage, race, belonging, fitting in and, yes, the bourgeoisie. That didn’t make it easy for me. Certain classes, clubs and cliques were very clearly closed off to someone who looked like me which only made me obsess more about how I could cross over, open doors and be accepted.
Those who know me and those that have seen the film ‘Wonder Boy’ know that today I do know my origins. And, today most of us can celebrate the modern, more open society that we now live in. So, while I do continue to love to play with the beauty and style of France’s classic signatures (always adding the necessary modern touch, of course), I do so knowing that as a 1/2 Ethiopian, 1/2 Somalian and 100% Frenchman there’s an incredible beauty to be explored in the wider world beyond those classics.
Paradoxically, this collection often riffs on classic bourgeois signatures, (which are often symbols of limited access), as it focuses on the beauty of a wider, border-free world one where the doors and minds are open a bit wider. We start with one basic truth: this is a tiny and beautiful planet, belonging to all. Here, we all share the same origin, needs and desires and any borders, (both figurative and literal), only serve to wall us off and limit us. That’s why this collection celebrates, at its heart, the beauty of the earth and sky. The runway will be filled with modern-day nomads, who are navigating seas, plains and dunes, while awed by the dazzling magnificence of the galaxies above and the earth’s tones below.
As I worked on the final looks over the holidays, the clear need for all of us to focus on that natural beauty was made even more evident to me. Watching wildfires burn and hearing about glaciers continuing to melt makes it clear that we are perhaps too focused on the small issues, while ignoring the very real danger of losing the beauty that’s right there, just in front of all of us.
Olivier Rousteing
Sun, February 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
Sun, February 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
Sun, February 2 2020 » Fashion Blog
