For this spring-summer 2020 ready-to-wear collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by photographs of Catherine Dior – Christian Dior’s sister – in which she appears amid her flowers, in the garden that was her passion. Through the iconic figure of this brave heroine, a woman of uncompromising determination and an unrivaled gardener, nature and the preservation of biodiversity are among the central themes celebrated in this show.
Conceived as an “inclusive garden”, it questions the place and role of living creatures on our planet. This is demonstrated by the scenography: a traveling grove designed with landscaping collective Coloco, the trees from which will continue their life journey after the show to enrich and preserve, like a pluralistic garden, the biodiversity of wooded spaces and other sustainability initiatives.
Driven by this conviction and by the love of gardens, this new Dior collection evokes — through motifs and embroideries, brilliance and texture of raffia — lush imaginary vegetation. The designs are presented in the style of herbaria, those precious inventories that preserve the memory of botanical species.
A series of dresses bathed in color, from yellow to red, seems to radiate with the aura of Monte Verità, an artistic community built around avant-garde ideas and practices, founded in Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century. In this way, the Creative Director’s poetic message of environmental commitment highlights that every small gesture counts in protecting and cultivating the beauty of our Earth.
(more…)
Tags: DIOR, DIOR SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Mon, October 7 2019 » Fashion Blog
Valentino © Copyright 2019
A study on withdrawing in order to focus on shapes and volumes: their purity, but also their extravagance. As part of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s broader and ongoing interest in inclusion within the once rarefied system of Couture, taking away brings the attention from the dress per se to the personality that gives life to it, from the object to the individual.
Grisaille is an artistic technique that consists of making a whole painting, glass wall or drawing in shades of grey and white. As a monochrome, it is an exercise of uttermost concentration. By subtracting color, shape and volumes come to the fore.
Grisaille as a monochromatic metaphor describes another quest into the spirit of Couture, which is Valentino’s true essence. Universal pieces such as the white shirt, the shirtdress, the dress, the pencil skirt, the bermuda shorts have been reduced to the essence and interpreted with the richness of Couture, in cotton poplin. The ordinary becomes extraordinary.
As permutations unfold and follow one after the other like shades and shadows multiplying on a grisaille, touched by the sense of craft of jewels, shoes and accessories, color slowly slithers in. It is a bright, compact and fluorescent color, immaterial as silk georgette on shapes that have been empties from the inside letting the body itself become structure.
The movement proceeds to bold fauvist prints charged with a narrative urgency, only to slow down and sink again into total white. Subtraction retains the frenzy and the richness of a whole universe of aesthetic references, just like the non color white is ultimately a sum of every color of the spectrum. The journey is now complete and can commence again.
Withdrawing is a process of discovery and of selfdiscovery. As the individual blends in, personality stands out. Quietly, on the inside.
(more…)
Tags: SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020, VALENTINO, VALENTINO SS 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
“Each look tells its own story. The connection between the clothes is the time it took to make them. I was interested in clarity and paring things down, in the essence of garments – stripping back to the toile. I love the idea of people having the time to make things together, the time to meet and talk together, the time to reconnect with the world.”
Sarah Burton | Creative Director
(more…)
Tags: ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
SLUMBERLAND
Slumberland, LANVIN’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection pays homage to Little Nemo, a hero emerging from the deepest of dreams.
Created by illustrator Winsor McCay in 1905, the adventures of Little Nemo in Slumberland appeared as a weekly comic strip in the New York Herald that portrayed the escapades of a young boy who had fantastical adventures in his dreams. Bruno Sialelli’s own childhood memories in the south of France often resonated with Nemo, where nothing was impossible, full of happiness, fantasy and dreams. This world is perfectly aligned with the story of Maison Lanvin; a house that began with Jeanne Lanvin drawing clothes for her dear daughter Marguerite.
For his Spring/Summer 2020 collection – its 64 looks for men and women – Bruno Sialelli adds a new chapter to the Lanvin story. In addition to Nemo, he revisits the elegance of the 1950s-60s and its Swans, as Truman Capote called them. Veritable goddesses of style, these jet-setters such as Lee Radziwill and Babe Paley strutted their elegance from the Hamptons to the Riviera with irresistible effortlessness.
Jackets are cocoons for comfort and are accented by ball suits and kimono coats, all architectural pieces where the details (square sleeves, swan necks, hidden buttons) highlight the couture look. Whole pages of Nemo’s adventures can be found on shirts, pleats and flowing jerseys. The opulence of the cuts and fabrics (wool gazar, silk, lurex, linen, voile…) is disrupted by the equally luxurious but ultra- contemporary accessories: XXL chain bracelets, cheeky yet stylish mules, Pharaoh loafers in gold leather and also bags such as the Knocker and the Toy, a bucket bag in resin and cashmere leather, for an endless summer on the beach or on the road.
For men, more casual looks join the LANVIN galaxy: raglan t-shirts with 60s prints by Jules-François Crahay, then Lanvin’s Creative Director; oversized blanket parkas in narrow-striped poplin with tons of pockets…you need them for tidying away souvenirs and other talismans from your escapades in Nemo’s world.
The final parade borrows elements from mukesh, an ancestral embroidery from Egypt that Jeanne Lanvin collected. This technique – linen mesh set with gold staples – is hardly used any more in Egypt, so Maison Lanvin went to India to find exceptional seamstresses who use similar practices. The five Grecian dresses bestrewn with coloured metallic sequins required fifteen thousand hours of work. Ethereal and swirling, they close this almost surreal collection.
Bruno Sialelli purposefully chose the Quai Branly Museum and its magnificent gardens as the setting for his Slumberland. Designed by Gilles Clément, the gardens encourage daydreaming and contemplation, far from the tribulations of the urban world. Adjoining this peaceful haven, a lounge-room has been created for the occasion in the style of famous American interior designer Dorothy Draper. It could be Nemo’s room: wallpaper with wide stripes, deep pile carpet, a happy and carefree exuberance.
The show will take place in silence. Each member of the audience will be given headphones to make the experience even more physically immersive in these dreamlike surroundings. On the programme: an experimental mix designed for the occasion in binaural sound also called “3D sound” with extracts from the King and the Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies and Anna Meredith.
This sound approach is also a reflection on our era and the millennial generation, described as hyper-individualistic and in their own bubble. With this show, Bruno Sialelli does the opposite as he invites the audience to a fun and immersive experience in his own bubble, the bubble of his era: the LANVIN bubble.
(more…)
Tags: Lanvin, LANVIN SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
Balenciaga Summer 20 reimagines dressing for work: power dressing, no matter what one does as a job. Looks transform a wearer in the way a uniform can. Unlike their archetypes, though, garments and accessories are made using un- conventional processes.
New Fashion Uniforms, for example, invent a powerful but convertible shoulder line, while other garments shift a pattern so that seams twist around the body. Seamless Tailoring introduces a new shape for suits in all styles.
The newest Balenciaga sneaker, the Tyrex, is made with a sinuous network of athletic elements to form the silhouette of a classic office shoe. New Trompe L’oeil sets one style against another, creating a familiar archetype with inventive materials.
Super Plissé presses an entire ultra-large garment with pleats. Pillow Parkas are made of lightweight outerwear lined with inflated puffer jackets.
Fetish Gowns are made with negligee-like lace, but in voluminous shapes. Wearable Ballroom dresses reference the couture House’s legacy in contemporary textiles, with removable crinolines, to be worn in any setting. Models of various career tracks interpret and play on beauty standards of today, the past, and the future.
(more…)
Tags: BALENCIAGA, BALENCIAGA SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
As you might have heard, TELFAR is a black-owned, non-gendered fashion project established in 2004 in NYC. That was a long time before such a thing was possible…We would like to keep it that way — to appear always just over a horizon. Our shows are the result of a radical form of collaboration that we hope borders on conspiracy – in search of the collective form; the human form: of music, of theatre and of style. For Spring Summer 2020 we bring the practice to the screen – through the commissioning of a collective film.
Previews as a trailer for PFW The World Isn’t Everything is an exquisite corpse drawn and drawing together artist Petra Collins, break-out American playwright Jeremy O. Harris, enigma Dean Blunt, post-pop-star Steve Lacy, and rappers Butch Dawson and Bby-mutha, Moonlight star Ashton Sanders and Diamond Singily among very many others… The film mirrors a runway presentation and is accompanied by a live score by the Afro-Parisian DJ/Genius CRYSTALLMESS and the London based sonic artist Klein.
The aim of this show is the same as that of the brand. In an era of representation we insist on presence. In the era of inclusivity we cannot be content to be included in someone else’s world. Our project is to build a world of our own and the process and the result are indistinguishable. Our customers are our collaborators and our cousins are our customers.
Spring/Summer 2020 takes its inspiration from the customs/security lines at any airport at given time, anywhere in the world. It marks our third collaboration with the all American beer brand Budweiser, whose iconic emblems appear throughout in jersey, silk and twill.
We begin with our militant cargo section — in slate, drab and khaki — bisected by signature TELFAR panel- ling. What could be the legs of a pair of cargo shorts replace the arms of a simple T shirt — adding utility to ubiq- uity. Sideless slacks and shirts and a full military poncho with a hidden hood finish a utilitarian statement torn between tourism and survival.
Our denim is paneled and modular: with T-shirt flares, graphic cut-outs or full legs replaced with fish-net and leather, or dappled with fluffy clouds of bleach. A knit section starts with a trio of smart mod-zipped polos to return as breezy Afro-Jamaican string-vests: in T’s, hoodies and our classic asymmet- rical tank cut from crop to tunic.
A sporty tricot section in red, black and khaki is branded with an anachro-sporty iteration of the Telfar logo — for an iconic track-and-field statement whose fully constructed stripes betray complex tailoring, hidden pockets and zippered ventilation along their lengths. A pair of 70′s running shorts appear, then reappear as a poly-athletic version of our classic thigh-hole jean. Track pants, merge into denim at hip with a kind of queer inevitability as the trunks of track jackets are replaced with cotton netting, or T shirts, recycled from elsewhere in the collection.
As is our custom, our T shirts feature looks from our previous collection. FW 2019 “COUNTRY” poses as promotional stills from an unfinished black spy thriller. Some are cut at the back, or missing a sleeve; wrap at the sides or gather at the waist with a drawstring. The appliqué language of American Varsity is repurposed for a dimensional camouflage, constructed from amoebas of khaki and bone jersey, or in cut-out varsity letters backed with fishnet to skin.
“T shirt” with fragments of print, embroidery and appliqué invades the collection as both idiom and material. A duet of buttonless split collared shirts appear to be constructed out of scraps of vintage surf-T’s. They spill from the southern border, as the bottom of a jean as a flares; or as a boxer shorts — unseat a Chino mid-hip. The body of our polos is likewise replaced, leaving nothing knit but a collar and pocket stranded in a graphic sea.
Poplin is evicted as the primary material for our collared shirts and wraps featuring vintage Budweiser beer graphics printed inside out. Even a pair of two-piece suits, over-dyed in navy and ox-blood, are revealed by their faint graphics and raw slashed seams to be composed of nothing but jersey T shirts.
(more…)
Tags: SPRING SUMMER MEN 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020, TELFAR, TELFAR SS 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
A Sense of Joy
Something that is intrinsic always feels new.
Like what our body desires, like what our heart feels,
Like how we find the blue in the sea and the sky beautiful,
Like the ease we feel when a breeze caresses our face,
And like the excitement that prompts us to sing and dance.
We are never tired of feelings like these and only wish to experience more, For the novelty we always find in them.
If we trace back to the origin of clothing, there we would find a simple act
of wrapping ourselves with a piece of cloth, perhaps an inclination to adorn our body. As we do so we feel a sense of joy that is primitive and instinctive.
Draw · Connect
Overlap · Dye
Swing · Extend
Move · Bounce
Dance · Turn
We find things that are intrinsic in both tradition and innovation: in the culture of weaving and dyeing practiced in Japan since the old days, and in the latest manufacturing technologies and materials developed by advanced science. It is in our interest to look at them with a new perspective, and by connecting and integrating them we can begin to create clothes that bring us a sense of joy.
It all started from a simple idea of bringing people from different regions and generations together, different as they are, forming circles and holding hands, as we all share this joy intrinsic to who we are that is not bound
by space and time.
(more…)
Tags: ISSEY MIYAKE, ISSEY MIYAKE SS 2020, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2020
Thu, October 3 2019 » Fashion Blog
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 …
(more…)
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.
(more…)
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
