Gucci plans to stage its next runway show in Los Angeles, the first time the Florentine marque has staged a show in the United States in six years.
To celebrate the brand’s centennial year, creative director Alessandro Michele has decided to stage Gucci’s next catwalk event in LA on Wednesday, Nov. 3, the brand confirmed Monday.
The show is timed to coincide with the 10th LACMA Art+Film Gala, scheduled for Nov. 6, where Gucci is the founding and presenting sponsor.
Back in 2015, Michele took his debut cruise collection for Gucci to New York, unveiling it inside New York’s Dia-Art Foundation. Moving to the West Coast underlines how important Los Angeles is to both Michele and Gucci.
“Los Angeles (is) a city that continues to provide him a constant source of inspiration and which has played a significant role in Gucci’s hundred-year history,” Gucci said in its release.
The house stressed that the show in LACMA was very much part of “carrying on the series of happenings and unveilings in its centenary year.”
Last month, Michele feted the brand’s 100 years with a stellar show video named Aria, which contained multiple in-jokes and visual puns to the house’s founder, Gucci Gucci, along with a novel linkup with Balenciaga, a fellow brand in Kering, the giant French luxury group.
Gucci had previously made plans to stage last year’s cruise collection in San Francisco in May 2020, before the pandemic forced it to call off that event.
Michele has a well-honed tradition of staging Gucci catwalk shows inside storied locations and noted art centers. The Roman-born designer has taken Gucci inside the cloisters of Westminster Abbey for a Queen Elizabeth I rock-star show; and to the Palatine Gallery in Florence; Capitoline Museums of Rome and Promenade Des Alyscamps in Arles.
However, in April 2020, Michele announced via Instagram that he wanted to skip the official calendar of shows in Milan for the foreseeable future.
“I will abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call. We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story. Irregular, joyful and absolutely free chapters, which will be written blending rules and genres, feeding on new spaces, linguistic codes and communication platforms,” Michele wrote, in a major disruption.
The move meant Gucci became the second house within the giant luxury Kering group to decide, in the wake of the global pandemic, to exit the international runway season in both Milan and Paris. It joined Saint Laurent, Kering’s largest French label, which has not shown in Paris for the past several seasons.
Sir is bringing its minimalist Australian style to Melrose Avenue
Contemporary Australian womenswear brand Sir The Label is bringing its minimalist wardrobe to Los Angeles this spring with a week-long pop-up.
Running Friday, April 30 through Friday, May 7, at 8280 Melrose Avenue, the temporary store will offer the brand’s versatile separates, intimates and ready-to-wear styles, which combine simple silhouettes with a feminine touch.
Sir was founded in 2014 by Nikki Campbell and Sophie Coote, who wanted to create a brand that could capture “the spirit of the Australian lifestyle” with minimalist wardrobe staples. The label’s collections bring together retro influences and contemporary inspirations in order to create an aesthetic intended to be distinctive, wearable and timeless.
The brand, which currently operates a single flagship boutique in the Sydney suburb of Manly, prides itself on its sustainable commitments, which seek to address both social and environmental issues.
Having focused on its targets of eliminating single use plastic in its stores and introducing 100% recyclable packaging by early 2021, the company is now aiming to transition all incoming and outgoing packaging to be 100% biodegradable by the beginning of next year.
The brand also carries out a strict vetting process with its manufacturing partners, which must abide by Sir’s code of conduct. The code covers issues such as workplace discrimination, health and safety, and fair wages.
Shoppers can drop by Sir’s LA pop-up from 10AM to 6PM, until the first Friday of May.
Gabriela Hearst in her latest show of hers for her namesake label, and the last before debuting with her night job as Chloé’s new creative director in Paris, Hearst redid the ideas of the 11th century philosopher and mystic, Saint Hildegard of Bingen. The result was a classy and composed collection that managed to be contemporary and cool, unveiled on Tuesday night in New York. Hearst smartly juxtaposed the clothes in a suitably gritty show video, shot in a light-filled riverside warehouse with corrugated iron walls underneath the Williamsburg Bridge, in a lush piece of direction by Alexandre de Betak.
Each look expressed a new maturity and conviction in Hearst’s work, which Hildegard – an abbess who corresponded with popes and emperors – would surely have appreciated.
Opening with flowing cloaks; long knitted dresses and some excellent trench coats – finished with shoulder knots or hoods. For day, showing stylish Swiss lace frocks; Aran sweater cocktail dresses or precise leather macramé looks worn over polo necks. For evening, flowing satin dresses over flared white pants or snazzy thick-ribbed knit cocktails all looked great.
“St. Hildegard was a composer, poet, philosopher, mystic, linguist, botanist, and medical theorist. If she were born a man we would all know her name as we know Leonardo da Vinci’s. Her visions that started at an early age began her spiritual journey that can only be made with true passion. She saw that the answer was in the Green Power of Nature,” argued Hearst in her program notes.
After seeing her 12-tear-old daughter Mia placing flowers in her art book, and then carefully replicating them, Hearst used these as prints – “knitted and crocheted with two non-for-profit women empowering co-ops we work with in Uruguay and Bolivia.” The results were some great woolen ensembles and charming skirts and tanks.
Mia’s prints were also the basis for the patterns in the Swiss lace and leather macramé looks, climaxing with classy town coats, whose lower halves morphed into lace. Cool ethnic blanket looks, from patchwork ponchos to country weekend coats referenced Hearst’s youth in Uruguay, adding high color to the collection.
A true polyglot, Hildegard wrote three volumes of theology; two volumes on natural medicines and cures; invented her own language and composed sacred monophony – there are more surviving chants by her than any composer from the Middle Ages.
The designer’s soundtrack was an original composition too. By Uruguayan artist Juan Campodonico, adding a quick step beat to the show video, wihich ended with Hildegard Hearst taking an extended tour down the massive warehouse.
Sauntering out through the battered doors onto the East River, in a great symbolic exit, as she sets off on the next stage of her career – conquering Paris.
Anna Sui relives the legendary 60s with the carefree atmosphere and the music of flower children, of a cultural and musical renaissance that gave birth to the rebirth of humanity in those years. Even today the message is clear, there is a desire to rediscover the emotion of life, freedom and lightheartedness.
Carefully chosen pop-paisley dresses and great picnic dresses worn with matching printed tights. All with a touch of whimsy and extravagance that he associates with Sui – from the faux fur coat with a big cat print and hat paired with bright psychedelic Navajo coats.
The cast dances in front of a fabulous backdrop of circus fair stars and planets, painted by Sarah Oliphant, to the tune of George Harrison’s sitar-infused Flower Power pop soundtrack.
When it gets dark, Sui’s mermaids hit nightclubs in micro-sequined trouser suits or flirty lace dresses, trimmed with river gambler laces.
“As we wait” on pause “for the new world to emerge from this pandemic, my mind is a whirlwind of vibrant worldviews right in front of us – I can’t stop thinking about that” black and white in color ” Moment. The limbo we live in will become psychedelic, exuberant with colors and patterns: it will be Phantasmadelic! “Enthused Sui in his notes on the program.
Aided by an excellent cast of a quintet of young veterans – Hanne Gaby Odiele, Lara Park, Issa Lish, Dilone and the perfectly sulky Cristina Piccone – all perfectly composed by Pat McGrath.
Sui easily had one of the best collections and videos in last season’s largely virtual New York fashion season in September. She just had another one in the current fashion week.
After having dressed Lady Gaga for the oath of President of the United States of America Joe Biden. American fashion designer Daniel Roseberry presented on Monday an unusually surreal collection for the historic house, opening the haute couture season in Paris. A season whose 28 shows and presentations will take place entirely online, so the week began with a show video of four models enjoying couture fittings inside the house’s Place de Vendôme headquarters.
“I want to make an alternative couture house,” explained Roseberry in his program notes. He certainly lived up to his ambition with this dramatic and fantastical Spring/ Summer 2021 collection of couture – the greatest laboratory of high-end fashion. Take his beautiful Madonna who appeared in a golden zippered black sheath dress with attached golden metal halo, cradling a gold metal infant Jesus suckling on a single golden breast. While his blonde, Elsa Schiaparelli-lookalike emoted in a golden metal wig, and a divinely cut column, whose V-neck was trimmed in dense clusters of jewels and golden teeth. Roseberry loves volume – in case you were on another planet, he attired Gaga in a 13-foot-wide red silk faille skirt for her rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner in Washington – and whipped up huge clouds and candy floss shapes of silk satin to swaddle his moody models. Though this was also a boldly body-con concept collection: from the burnished leather mini sheathes laced at the side and cut with the torso of a pro bodybuilding champion; or her pink sequined party frock with the shoulders of an Olympic weightlifter. All the way to a metallic gold torso tank with diamond nipple rings; worn by a model in a golden metal mask. Everything donned with immense pride by the models in this video entitled 231 Seconds, for its length. Beginning his lookbook and ending his video with the black carbon-like pneumatic drill tummy of a torso finished with a humungous silk bow in shocking pink.
“Here, the fantasy isn’t princess dresses or polite garments; here, the fantasy is within. These are clothes that make you aware of the fact of your body, that make you think about how you move through the world. Elsa Schiaparelli also made clothes that torqued the body, but her intentions were never macabre; instead, she encouraged a childlike, un-neurotic exploration of the human form. Hers were garments meant to celebrate the joy of peacocking, the joy of showing off,” argued Roseberry in his program. A key element in the Schiaparelli DNA was always the Italian designer’s bizarrely sculptural jewelry, and Daniel had plenty of new ideas in that department. A key Schiaparelli signifier – the golden padlock – really got a work-over; blown up into a chunky minaudiere, or sewn onto multiple patch pockets of carpenter’s pants.
Roseberry revamped Dr Marten-style bovver boots into thigh boots with three-inch thick platform soles and golden metal toes. Then had them worn underneath boxing shorts. Plus his nine-inch earrings were something else – an extended golden finger reaching down to a tooth whose root was a black pearl. One chic witch even sprouted golden tentacles from her fingers, which pretended to scratch the camera. Earrings were also literally copies of ears, though made in gold and perforated the better to let diamanté bangles dangle from them. This collection marks his third for the house, whose owner Italian fashion billionaire Diego della Valle has churned through several couturiers in recent years. The hyper inventive and unapologetic Roseberry, however, looks to have staying power. So, expect a long American residency in Place Vendôme.
with a new Uniqlo collaboration and a lot of opinions.
Looks from Jil Sander’s new collection for Uniqlo, which drops on Thursday.Credit…via Uniqlo
Just over a decade ago, when the world was reeling in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Jil Sander, the German designer whose uncompromising approach to minimalist luxury had defined a certain kind of soft-power dressing for ambitious women, swooped in to offer much needed palliative care.
Joining forces with Uniqlo, the Japanese fast-fashion giant, Ms. Sander rethought her special brand of high-minded basics with a less high-numbered price. The result became one of the most successful, and unexpected, mass-market/designer collaborations up to that point. It was one based less on momentary buzz and influencers than on solving problems, like how clothes can help get you through the day. Called +J, it ran for five seasons, gave Uniqlo instant cred in the West and was briefly revived in 2014 as a greatest hits line.
Now, as the world reels in the throes of another crisis, it is back.
And as it turns out, Ms. Sander, a 76-year-old from Hamburg who never played the social media or celebrity game, who is not on Instagram, who had an exhausting Hamletian relationship with high fashion (she left and returned to her namesake company twice after her initial departure), who has been essentially absent from fashion for the last six years, who missed the whole Kardashian moment — who many Gen Y and Zers may not even know — may be the ideal designer for this mid-#MeToo, social justice, Covid-19, climate crisis time.
She may, in fact, have the answer to the question that has been bedeviling not just fashion but all of us who have had to pull ourselves out of bed and the slough of despond to negotiate life since lockdown began: How do we dress, not necessarily for the world that comes next, but to face the world we are in?
The first thing to know: It does not involve sweatpants.
“I think that radical down-dressing is a drainer,” Ms. Sander said over the phone from Germany, where she has been stuck since February. (She is not a fan of Zoom.)
Jil Sander at the 2017 exhibition “Jil Sander” at the Museum of Applied Art in Frankfurt. Credit… Boris Roessler/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images
“I am a modernist, and believe in mapping the future,” she said. “I am stupefied by the nostalgic turn fashion continues to take. Dressing in yesterday’s styles depresses our capacity to deal with present problems. Not making an effort in the morning will slow down your day and disorient you. If we want to change the world, we have to keep renewing ourselves.”
She has been practicing what she preaches since she left fashion (or at least the public stage of fashion) six years ago for personal reasons. She took time off to garden — she has created a floral refuge in her country place outside of Hamburg inspired by the Sissinghurst gardens in England — spearheaded a multimedia retrospective of her career at the Angewandte Kunst museum in Frankfurt, as well as a book, and has been learning to cook. And though Ms. Sander and Uniqlo had been in various talks over the years, she had not felt moved to actually work on a new line until she felt she had something meaningful to say.
“I never stopped designing in my head,” she said. “Now I felt ready. I wanted to react to disposable fashion. I believe in designs I would wear myself. This has been the driving energy since my beginnings, when I found nothing to perform with as a business woman.”
(“Perform with” may be a bit of translation awkwardness, but it is also an accurate characterization of how we use clothes in life.)
Though Ms. Sander founded her company in 1968 and first showed in Paris in 1975, it was in the 1980s and ’90s that she really came into her own, offering an alternative to the big-shouldered, big-gold-buttoned brassiness of the go-go decade. Women gravitated toward the deceptive simplicity of her clothes, which married extreme architecture with extreme materiality so that each garment had an internal strength, and every line communicated purpose, forethought and empathy for the person within.
THE T LIST: A weekly roundup of what the editors of T Magazine are noticing and coveting right now.
She was, effectively, Old Celine before Old Celine. Her clothes did not respond to, or even acknowledge, trends. Both her own line and her Uniqlo work were not meant for the moment — or for anyone desperate to show they were of the moment — but for the long term.
That’s part of what makes her clothes work so well now. Who wants something of this moment? This moment sucks. You want something that is beyond the moment. Above the moment.
Jil Sander x UniqloCredit…via Uniqlo
Jil Sander X UniqloCredit…via Uniqlo
At first Uniqlo wanted the safety of 10 “best pieces.” Ms. Sander said she argued for a whole collection, though not the bloated kind runway-goers have become used to, with 60 or 70 looks. Rather, she argued for a reduced-to-its-essence, all-you-need-and-nothing-else kind (excess stuff being the last thing anyone wants).
She started in January and went to Japan in February, though she has been working via videoconference since then. The result is a tightly edited collection of 25 pieces for men and 32 for women in a limited color palette (black, white, navy, burgundy) that fit together like an interlocking puzzle with no unnecessary parts.
There are crisp but non-constricting white cotton collarless shirts and black tuxedo button-ups that are best with the ties left louchely undone. A slouchy black pantsuit and neat collarless navy jacket. Thin, body-caressing knits. And a panoply of fantastic puffers with face-framing collars and sculpted silhouettes, as well as hoods that can be drawn up and turtled into.
Though there are separate lines for men and women, they can be mixed and matched as desired. (People will desire.) The prices range from $49.90 for the shirts and sweaters to $249.90 for the cashmere-blend overcoats.
“To me, it seems less important to express your sex than to show by the way you dress that you respect yourself,” Ms. Sander said. “I wanted to define the body without restricting it, to focus on controlled volumes, rather than just oversize, so it feels generous.”
Her own favorite piece is a white silk turtleneck. Her aim, she said, was to make clothes that were “indispensable.” That’s kind of a radical idea in a world in which we have become increasingly used to the idea of clothes as throwaway items.
But then, to her, these are not just clothes. They are “symbols,” she said. “We need symbols, even of a vestimentary kind, that encourage us and suggest new beginnings.”
Whether this suggests the beginning of a whole new line or simply a guest appearance from a fashion deity, designed to jump-start us in a new direction for the looming new year, however, she would not say.
“… It is celebrated on November 25, the date that commemorates the brutal murder of the Mirabal sisters in 1960. The date also marks the 16 days of activism against gender violence that precede World Human Rights Day on December 10 …”
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Women are amazing.You say nothing and they understand everything.
They say everything and you don’t understand anything.
This is how women have ruled the world since the beginning of time and from the beginning of time.
There are the simple ones, the sweetly naive ones, there are the complicated ones, indomitable like hurricanes.
Whatever nuance their character has, they are the ones who make the difference.
With their looks full of words, with their hearts full of bruises.
Yes, when a woman becomes a female it starts to make a difference.
You are not born a woman you become, charm, love, courage.
They are made of smiles that know how to swallow tears,
of silences where their deepest feelings scream and
of moments when they don’t want to be understood,
they just want to be loved.
With the right time and the right shoes they can do anything,
On the night Vice President-elect Kamala Harrismade history, she recognized the long battle women had faced for the right to vote and to break into the highest ranks of American politics — and said that “every little girl watching” across the country now knows they can do so, too.
In a speech Saturday night in Wilmington, Delaware, before she introduced President-elect Joe Biden, Harris also thanked Black women, saying they are “too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.”
“While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last,” Harris said. “Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
“And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before. And we will applaud you every step of the way,”
She said
–
–
A history-making figure as the first woman, the first Black person and the first South Asian elected vice president, Harris began her speech with a nod to Georgia Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died this year.
Harris was the fourth woman to appear on a major political party’s presidential ticket, following Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, Republican No. 2 Sarah Palin in 2008 and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. She is the first to win.
In her speech, Harris also expressed her gratitude to Biden and his family, thanking the President-elect and his wife, Jill Biden, “for welcoming our family into theirs on this incredible journey.” She also mentioned Beau Biden, the President-elect’s late son, who Harris first got to know when they were state attorneys general.
Harris recognized a new generation of women who cast their ballots in 2020, and remembered her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who immigrated to the United States from India as a young woman.
“When she came here when was 19, she could not have imagined this moment,” Harris said of her mother, who died in 2009. “But she believed in an America where moments like this are possible.”
“I’m thinking about her and about the generations of women — Black women, Asian, White, Latina and Native American women — throughout our nation’s history who have paved the way for this moment tonight,” she said. “Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality, liberty and justice for all, including the Black women, who are too often overlooked, but so often prove that they are the backbone of our democracy.”
She wore a white suit, a nod to suffragettes 100 years after women’s constitutional right to vote was guaranteed.
“Tonight I reflect on their struggle, their determination, and the strength of their vision to see what can be, unburdened by what has been. And I stand on their shoulders,” Harris said. “And what a testament it is to Joe’s character that he had the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exist in our country and select a woman as his vice president.”
DEMERY JAYNE COLLECTION A NEW CONCEPT OF FASHION AND WEAR
When we talk about DJC we talk about Demery Jayne Collections, a new line of lingerie and swimwear for women, a story that starts, in fact, from an idea and also a dream of Demery Jayne.
This story and this project are the story of a very young company but determined to follow its style to the end and to do this it makes use of its team of professional figures with many years of experience in their respective fields of work. Demery is the brand’s first source of inspiration, as a model, as an inspiring muse and as a world traveler and in this path she metStacy Christensen. Stacy is a professional expert in fashion, in particular lingerie and swimwear, she knows perfectly the product development phases, from color to model, papery as it used to be and CAD on the PC as it is done today, to style, obviously passing for choosing the best materials.
A glance was enough, some talks with Demery, we could say, and Stacy immediately developed a 16-piece pre-collection with three color variations: black, white and pink quartz.
The components that distinguish the style of the collection are all aesthetically inspired by that period of Italian history where nature, artistic and cinematographic culture during the 70s and 80s have greatly influenced fashion, costume, and trends.
The models of the Translusencecollection, however, have many innovative and current components in their DNA, fundamental for the needs of a contemporary woman.
The winning idea of the collection is to show elegance without being excessive in terms of shades and shapes. The common thread that connects all these creations is the refinement but also the flexibility of the garment understood as an interpretation that each customer can give from time to time. In fact, many of the models, such as Hanelli, the swimsuit, were created for the swimming pool, the boat or the sea, but also for the trip, as shown in the images of New Yorktaken byAlessandro Sicuro, you can use that piece with jeans or a skirt, so as to combine class and versatility. Even the Obsidian Intimate model, purely for underwear, can be worn instead of a shirt or an undershirt under the jacket, replacing the classic shirt that could sometimes make it look too formal.
We want to preserve all the style, class and femininity that can be seen from a different angle with a defusing touch of our Obsidian, with more grit and modernity. “Style and elegance have never been so versatile,” says the brand’s slogan. Exactly for this reason.
You can find our products in many stores but also via e-commerce and drop shipping because our marketing strategy is to carry out the first campaign in the United States and we have been doing it for months, months where we have started a web marketing program and Google AdWords, with the geolocation set in the main cities of the States. Of course Covid-19 was an unexpected event that nobody was waiting for and nobody wanted. And as we hope that every person and company can overcome this bad experience, we too are now working hard, also producing masks. We are in fact in the phase of entering the market, ready and determined to place ourselves at an increasingly high level of brand reputation and the perception of the brand itself by the public, on Facebook, Instagram but also with the photographic events that we have created at New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Florence and Milan. We are launching a 360 – degree editorial and image action, signed by Alessandro Sicuro Comunication. In fact, we trusted this company and its person in particular, as our Brand Strategist. We have just told you about the target of this mission, to touch with your hand just take a look at our Store.
After a marathon 13 days of online fashion shows and events – from French haute couture to Italian sportswear – it’s useful to take stock and consider what worked and what didn’t after the industry passed through the first purely digital summer fashion season in history.
Photo: FashionNetwork.com / Godfrey Deeny
Happy to report there were several genuine virtual fashion moments, along with plenty of salutary lessons to be learned for the future. Certainly, the experience of sitting stuck before their desks tops and screens made every editor only long to return to an actual show. Doubly so, when the images of an actual live show, Jacquemus’ Field of Dreams collection in a giant wheat field northeast of Paris, went viral, reminding the entire industry of how great fashion shows can be almost spiritual experiences.
However, despite ending the nearly two weeks with an aching back from peering endlessly at a desktop, it’s clear to most editors that the season has been a learning curve for every house. All of whom will exploit the digital possibilities that this July revealed: whether to brand build; prep an ad campaign; tease an audience; stimulate private customers, or simply to create a proper online showroom.
It all began in Paris with an off-calendar live video streaming of the backstage of Hermès menswear department on Sunday, July 5; and ended, more or less, with Missoni in Milan the afternoon of Friday; July 17. Then again not quite, since Valentino is planning a semi-live event in Rome tomorrow, and Christian Dior will present its cruise collection before friends and family in the main piazza of Lecce in Puglia on Thursday evening. So, who were the big winners, and losers, of the season? And which brands merited recognition for their digital ideas? Here are 10 picks; eight ‘dos’ and two ‘don’t’s.
Gucci
Best use of live streaming – Gucci
This award has to go to Gucci, where Alessandro Michele, in a brilliant reversal of the restrictions of the lockdown, picked the house’s creative team as his cast. They may not have been gorgeous runway creatures, but they more than made up for that with their self-confidence, attitude and innate sense of style. Staged over almost 12 hours, from the making of to the denouement, the whole event bristled with iconoclastic imagination – from its grand location in the storied Palazzo Sacchetti to the retro-pop MTV graphics to the brainy cast. No wonder they called it The Final Act of a Fairy Tale.
Best video – Christian Dior
Definitely the award goes to Matteo Garrone’s stupendous video for Le Mythe Dior, shot in ancient ruins around Rome. Dior did get clobbered on social media for the lack of any models of color in the video. But the fantasy of nymphs discovering tiny stockman versions of the latest Dior ready-to-wear, brought to them by two Dior hotel porters was an instant classic of surrealist cinema.
Best phygital fashion – Ermenegildo Zegna XXX
No designer tapped more into the potential of blending live with recorded than Alessandro Sartori’s livestreaming show that climaxed on the roof of Zegna’s historic headquarters overlooking the Italian Alps. Top-shelf tailoring meets classy staging.
Best shows in a box – JW Anderson and Loewe
The only designer to put a great deal of effort into his invitations was Jonathan Anderson both at his own brand at Loewe. Sending out a fabric covered file full of sketches, looks, dried flowers and unlikely fabrics for JW Anderson; and a whole dossier with cutouts; influences; and even a mini 45 RPM record. And the result was two very cunning methods to make a creative statement and to tempt an audience with some eye-catching new clothes.
Best indie brand clip – Davi Paris
Not much cash but acres of imagination in this clifftop frolic which encapsulates the freedom of hanging out with your young mates in early summer. French insouciance at its best.
Most subtle display of clothes – Juun.J
Juun.J has been staging tremendous shows in Paris for several seasons; so it was great to see the brand pull off an elegiac black and white video of his nation’s capital – SeoulSoul. Juun.J is the ghost of Gianfranco Ferré meets Rick Owens; the most dynamic designer in the most dynamic culture in Asia – South Korea.
Best statement on the zeitgeist – Versace
Donatella invited UK rapper AJ Tracey to stage a livestream performance in her video clip. And the result was a timely statement on today’s key issues – Black Lives Matter and people’s empowerment. And, the clothes looked marvelous too.
Best recognition of artisanal Italy – Santoni and Tod’s The backbone of Italian design is its remarkable artisans. Few of whom fashion editors and VIPs ever meet in Milan or Rome. Certain houses shot films in their home regions to better express their DNA and what distinguishes each of them. Like two great footwear brands from Le Marche – Santoni and Tod’s. Sometimes it’s just plain refreshing to see a well-put-together product video, where one can appreciate the innate quality of what’s on display. Case in point: master shoemaker Santoni, with an admirable clip called “Origini, An Emotional Narration.” Set in Le Marche, the ruggedly proud region on the Adriatic halfway down the Italian boot, and an ideal location to highlight the patina of a great pair of crocodile loafers, or woven leather sneakers as models marched on an almost lunar rocky shore. Voyaging inland to the Apennines, the jaggedly cut green valleys were an ideal backdrop for pewter-hued moccasins or superb loafers.
“I’m trying to make the DNA of Tod’s my own… Riffing on ’70s jet set,” explained Chiapponi, walking through the all-white buildings; from design studio to research department to workshop, capturing the first phases of the creative process. From moulds to mood boards; from yarns to craftspeople. All the way to a photo shoot where Italian models
Best pure fashion statement – Plan C For pure design chops our favourite statement was by Plan C, and some remarkable patchwork assemblage dresses with images of mountain cabins; electric pylons, soaring peaks and overgrown meadows untouched by any farmer in lockdown. Exactly the images seen in a lyrical video Plan C designer Carolina Castiglioni shot in the foothills of the Alps. “Everyone is a landscape,” commented the designer, who appeared in her own video as a model. Add in some simple and refined flowing summer picnic dresses in windbreaker stripes and a buttoned-up, funnel neck trench in a naïve print. The result: another great collection from the rising star of Milan fashion.
Beautiful is not necessarily best – Maison Margiela
The house of Margiela presented a series of color-saturated videos over several days during the season, many of which had a wonderful sense of refinement. However, their techie Pointillist style meant it was very hard to see any actual clothes, or indeed understand what John Galliano was trying to express.
Maison Margiela’s Co-Ed Autumn/Winter 2020 collection – YouTube
Laziest effort – Dries Van Noten
This award has to go to Dries Van Noten, whose clip of a young lad mock-drumming inside a strobe-lit set was video indolence par excellence. Godfrey Deeny
SARA DAL MONTE STYLE 