Monday — July 6
SCHIAPARELLI
THE CALL OF THE VOID
Designer Daniel Roseberry was riding on the confidence of the last season’s collection “The Agony and the Ecstasy,”. Embracing the same creative process, trying to recreate the same scenario. But it failed. Quickly learning that being wrapped up in a previous cycle only left Roseberry running in circles. It was until he forfeited to what the French call “l’appel du vide” – The call of the void, that things began to turn. Accepting that aesthetic can’t be formulated, by embracing the absurdity of the unknown, to create something new.
The look is built around stripping down the fancy, royalty materials. Instead pairing haute couture techniques with synthetic materials, trading silks and satins for latex and silicone. A maritime pastel theme like sea fauna and lobster pink with aquatic accents of fishscales, shells, & pearls. Because of the nature of the latex and silicone, pieces were scalped around the models like art. Their bodies molded into each piece with tremendous precision. The collection seemed to have features from the past, present and future. Roman anatomical cuirass, 1920 flapper draped dresses, and embroidered crin tentacles. The Iconic Schiaparelli jacket is simply used as an accessory to fit it all together.
DOIR
THE LANGUAGE OF COUTURE
For the second time, Designer Jonathan Anderson crafted this couture collection. The concept revolves around the idea of the fabric becoming the sculpture, rather than referencing past Dior lines. Influenced by American sculptor Lynda Benglis’s work, the idea starts with a 2D idea that is transformed by pleating and molding the material to build a third dimensional form.
Using techniques like hand pleating, knotting and draping to sculpt the design is what Dior describes Anderson’s approach as looking at “materiality and form from another angle.”. Anderson’s connection with places that inspired Benglis, like Ahmedabad, Gujarat and Santa Fe radiates through hints of Indian chintz (finely woven cotton textiles traditionally hand-painted) and the crystallined dry environment of Santa Fe. The look features tons of gathered material with balloon and cocoon silhouettes. The overall look is noticeably soft with dramatic volume, particularly in the gowns.
IRIS VAN HERPEN
SONIC STARQUAKES
With a name like that, you could almost visualize the aesthetics. The futuristic look hinders on the transparent anatomical construct resulting in the human body being distorted by a stellar phenomenon. With some looks being truly electric, depicting force fields, electromagnetic energy and sound waves. What stands out is how much the hair in incorporated into the look, colored and styled accordingly, often with similar colors and patterns
Tuesday — July 7
CHANEL
GABY AND THE BEANSTALK
This is Matthieu Blazy’s second collection for the house. You can only imagine with the title what the collection entails. Inspired by a fairy tale straight from madame Chanel’s personal library titled “Les Fées, contes des contes”. Featuring themes including Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Puss in Boots, all revolving around bringing fantasy to the ordinary.
Instead of designing “costumes” the look includes taking signature items, tweed jackets and tailored suits and adding a fantasy twist, like feather braiding and botanical embroidery. With tailored, elongated silhouettes and a softer side through CHANEL’s flou atelier, extremely lightweight and finished with botanical motifs.
ALEXIS MABILLE
DOUBLE JE
Definitely an unforgettable show. The concept is built around duality. A model appears, in a dark piece and makes their round across the room. After the first lap, two assistants get positioned and strip away the gown reversing the piece into something new. Each piece is manipulated, an opening, reversal, removal, or repositioned, into something new. Giving every look multiple purposes and style. Vogue describes the collection as a “double offer”, having each piece transform into a second look.
GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVÉ
NOCTURNE
Silvana Armani’s second collection is built around a “false black” concept, where each piece seems to appear black from afar, until the light reveals the true underlying colors and texture. Emphasizing the sleek noir look with high-waist trousers, fluid evening gowns, narrow coats, and oversized lapels. Rather than using absurd volumes or theatrical shapes, Armani’s integrated tailoring and texturization is what establishes movement and control, using integrity to create spectacle.
Wednesday — July 8
FRANCK SORBIER
THE GLOBE-TROTTER’S PERFUME
Sorbier is definitely known to create expressionist art and this show was no exception. The collection is as much performative art as wearable theatrics, with everything seeming to be all over the place. Just when you think there’s a theme, someone walks out in a quilted overcoat with geometric prints and floral textiles carrying a bounded book that could be a journal or dairy. There’s a story behind every look, where the patchwork and book represent a weary travel, wearing her journey on her back, ready to document every part.
JEAN PAUL GAULTIER
TECH COUTURE
The collection is Duran Lantink’s first as the new creative director for JPG. The concept is more of the typical haute couture sense with exaggerated sculptures and immoderate shaping. A fusion of 18th-century panniers and corsets with abstract brushlike attachments and exposed breasts creating a surrealist distortion. Shape comes front and center. Think Marie Antoinette volume with a forced perspective. From the front or the side, things seem normal, then a turn reveals a gapping hole, exposing legs. An expressive collection hindering on using the body as an architectural object.
