Wolk Morais Spring 2021 Ready-To-Wear

Brian Wolk and Claude Morais made their spring 2021 film over 26 nights in Los Angeles. They’d pull up at the model’s or actor’s or fashion consultant’s house with a garment bag and shoot without even leaving their car. The result is a testament to the charm of LA living, wildfires notwithstanding. Equally, it showcases the ingenuity of Wolk and Morais’s upcycling and the multi-generational appeal of their tailoring.

“We wanted to create a collection that was not only responsible and sustainable, but also content that tells a story about what’s going on right now,” Wolk explained over a Zoom call from a smoky Hollywood. And so you hear the model agent Omar Albertto in a herringbone tweed suit say, “I miss energies,” and other participants discuss how they’re pining for their friends and “the normality of being human.” Many designers have adjusted their offerings to this stay-at-home moment. Wolk and Morais have made a specialty of retro tailoring, and they’re standing by it. As they point out, their Spencer jackets, double-breasted waistcoats, and fabulous archival Liberty print shirts (all of fabrics were upcycled or sourced within a 12 mile radius of their studio) could just as easily be worn with jeans as with the oxford bags they styled them with. 

Because they dress young Hollywood, they didn’t neglect evening glam either. There are pajama sets in vintage brocade—the gossip around Los Angeles is that everyone’s wearing pajamas to the Emmys—and a very 1930s silver sequin bias-cut gown. For those of us who don’t have red carpets, virtual or otherwise, in our future, they’re planning on making the same dress in t-shirt jersey.

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Spring 2021 Menswear

Rei Kawakubo envisaged protecting men with a layer of silver as she was devising her Homme Plus spring collection: “It is my wish that the strength of metal, the strength that wouldn’t yield to any pressure or force, and the strength that will give birth to hope to overcome the various hardships we face, will all overlap in this collection.”

“Metal Outlaw” was the title she came up with. And yes, the silver was a smart choice, reading luminously onscreen in what must have been one of the first seasons in decades that Comme des Garçons has not flown to Paris to show. Over the past couple of years, the imagery of Kawakubo’s shows has often communicated the sense of impending dystopia at the door, the designs manifesting the human reaction to it, flip-flopping between fear and the frantic impulse to dance, seize the day. This wasn’t like that: now that a completely unforeseen enemy has arrived to assail the whole of humanity, Kawakubo chose to resist the darkness and opt for communicating the quest for inner resilience. The clothes didn’t look like armor, retro space suits, or science-lab uniforms—the stock readings that silver will usually trigger. Instead, it was as if Kawakubo wanted to show a spiritual aura being generated from within, radiating from the silvery crinkles and wrinkles embedded in the surfaces of her rakish tailoring.

Surmounting and adapting to the problems of working during isolation, Kawakubo had made a conceptual projection from an interior landscape onto clothes (NB: the incorporation of furniture, kitchen, and other indoor materials into 2020’s lockdown collections will make a Ph.D. study one day). Kawakubo said that it was contemplating the metallic materials she often uses in interiors that started her off. “Said,” that is, in show notes that arrived at the inboxes of members of the international press. The mini show was put on at Comme de Garçons’ Tokyo headquarters in front of 43 members of staff and a handful of local journalists.

Projections of work by the Brazilian artist and photojournalist Alberto Bitar flowed across the white space. Emerging from a cylindrical structure—a dressing room, maybe—the Metal Outlaws were wearing two variations of Comme tailoring themes: skinny-leg suits or baggy-short suits. What were the silver materials? Hard to be definitive, but some were crushed, some apparently foiled and printed, some with the appearance of leather (though Comme is a house that is firmly wedded to synthetics).

Whatever, this compressed collection fully consolidated Homme Plus characteristics as a house that has distinctive, tradition-bending cuts—alternative but not out to place men in the realms of conceptual clothing. If a full silver suit doesn’t appeal, Kawakubo proceeded to break it down into patchworks of suiting, cycling from traditional menswear lightweight wool to a sparky, for-the-kids section of lime, cornflower blue and yellow, and then wrapping up with a couple of dark tuxedos, with the silver reserved to lining the lapels. As a vote for optimism against the odds, it raised a smile.

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Libertine Spring 2021 Ready-To-Wear

The connections between new and old, past and present, are the main themes of every Libertine collection, but as the brand turns 20, it seems fair to say that “this time, it’s personal”—or more accurately, more personal than ever.

For spring 2021 Johnson Hartig used silkscreens from Libertine’s infant days; he also revisited the whale and skull-and-crossbones pattern developed for the brand’s 2007 collaboration with Target. This time around it was rendered in crystals, rather than embroidery, and used to “glow up” khakis. What was not visible, but important in terms of process and ideology, is that the designer sewed many pieces on his mother’s 1950s Singer, as he did even before the brand assumed its current name.

“I had always made clothes for myself from vintage things that I found at thrift shops [that] I would take apart and put back together,” says Hartig, “and I wanted to learn to silkscreen on clothing.” At a Christmas party he had at home in Los Angeles, he met Cindy Greene, who was working as a graphic designer for DKNY and performing with the electro-pop band Fischerspooner. She saw what Hartig was doing and proposed a collaboration. In 2001 the Californian headed to New York for a weekend to work with Greene in her DKNY studio where he recalls having to hide in the closet every time one of her colleagues entered. And that’s how the yet-to-be-named project set sail. In 2004 the pair made their New York Fashion Week debut with a collection of silkscreened vintage pieces and participated in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Greene amicably left the label in 2008.

Over time, the percentage of vintage in the collection shrunk and from scratch grew, but the past is ever a playground for Hartig, an avid collector. For spring 2021 he’s created a Libertine toile print from 18th-century textile fragments, adding surprise elements like a Libertine stamp and skeletons that haunt pastoral landscapes and crumbling edifices. Old stamps are similarly collaged into a print, which in one case was worked up into a lovely bias-cut dress with streamers based on a 1920s frock. Surrealism and trompe l’oeil are also part of the brand DNA. A suit with scissors and pattern-cutting lines is the most direct example. The pieces made up in a print developed from 1920s and 1930s button cards were over embroidered with vintage buttons.

Ghosts From Our Past is the title of the collection, but it is haunted not only by ghosts of the long, distant past. “I also have been thinking about this particular time [and] the nearly 1 million people who’ve died from this virus, about all of these spirits all at once,” the designer states. Hartig’s attention to how we are living now had practical applications: He shifted his attention from dressy evening to more casual everydaywear, like embellished white button-downs and the aforementioned crystallized khakis. Silkscreened cutoff shorts were very now at the same time that they were very “original Libertine,” meaning that they spoke to what Hartig describes as “the tension between preppy and street punk,” which is at the core of the brand.

In place of a show this season, Libertine is presenting a “fantastical” film made by a design associate named Xiaohan Zhao. It’s a trippy tribute to the collection and to the brand ethos. The video, like the collection, is deserving of a best-in-show award ribbon like those that cover a spring 2021 Beale-meets-Bouvier deb dress. In true Libertine fashion, both are “subversive, but also hopeful.” 

Source: Vogue

FASHIONADO

Saint Laurent SS 2021 Menswear

Breaking free of the fashion week calendar, Saint Laurent has opted to showcase its Spring/Summer 2021 Men’s collection independent of the industry. As such, “NO MATTER HOW LONG THE NIGHT IS” stands free of the fashion week churn, encouraging viewers to get lost in its inviting textures and timeless tailoring.

Intended to live as both a “virtual and physical experience,” art director Anthony Vaccarello has overseen the rollout of videos, AR clips, 3D lenticular images, curated playlists, flags, posters and more alongside the seasonal garment design, delivering a well-rounded presentation. At its core, however, the Spring/Summer 2021 range is all about quiet opulence, shrouding bomber jackets, coats, blazers and ankle-length shirts in lush patterns and rich fabrication.

Plush faux fur invites a playful touch while short-sleeved Western shirts are emblazoned with rocky patterns that could easily blend into the landscape of the American West. Saint Laurent’s signature skinny ties and silhouette-shrinking jeans are offered in classic black varients, but there are also new styles ideal for a louche look; deeply pleated pants, sleeveless tunic shirts and strappy gladiator-style sandals yield a new twist on warm weather effervescence.

Source: Hypebeast

FASHIONADO

Acne Studios FW 2020

Acne Studios teamed up with British artist Lydia Blakeley to showcase its upcoming Fall/Winter 2020 collection in a lookbook featuring members of the Swedish label’s staff and their pet dogs.

Shot by Anders Edström, this unique lookbook showcases staff members alongside their dogs, wearing pup-focused garments and oversized suiting pieces from the collection at the brand’s Stockholm HQ.

With the 70s brutalist-style building as a backdrop, the portrait captures Pontus Björkman, Global Wholesale Director and his Yorkshire Terrier Kenzo; Edouard Schneider, Global Communications Director and his Miniature Dachshund Pumba; Ioana Ciocan, Technical Designer and her French Bulldog Jasper, among others.

Comprising cotton staples, chequered patterns and classic denim pieces, this FW20 collection features reimagined vintage workwear pieces for both men and women. Stand-outs include an array of sturdy lumberjack-inspired shirts, all of which arrive in a healthy mix of bold and neutral hues.

Source: Hypebeast

FASHIONADO