MARIA ARISTIDOU COUTURE SS 2020: PARIS FASHION WEEK

Maria Aristidou SS2020 knit couture collection is, in every respect, inspired by the Art Deco movement of the early 20th century. When the need for change following World War One spread in all aspects of art and design from buildings to furniture, jewelry, fashion and every day objects. 

Similar to the Art Deco movement the collection combines bold styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials representing luxury, glamour and exuberance. 

Maria Aristidou’s BOLD collection, guided by the essence of shape to form clean, geometric designs with vivid colors and vibrant patterns using knit fabrics, represents a challenge for both men and women to deviate from the norm, be BOLD and dive into the fascinating abyss of Art Deco inspired shapes and colors of knit couture.

The magic of knitwear inspired the designer to first explore and then create, using luxurious threads, elaborate techniques, and various knit patterns. The craftsmanship of detailed hand embroideries adds to the uniqueness of Maria Aristidou's fabric collections for the couture evening and accessories.

The process of each collection production starts from the fabric design. Yarns such as wool, viscose, lurex, cotton, silk and velvet (depending on the season) are ordered from France and Italy.  Then, a series of patterns are designed in great detail followed by a series of tests to decide on the yarns to be used for each pattern, how thick or thin the fabric will be, color sampling combinations, hand-embroidery design testing, quality and durability checks etc.  The whole design and production processes take place in Cyprus.

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FALL 2020 PRADA MENSWEAR

As a swelling and ominous bass obscured heroic but fading trumpets the lights came up over a Prada set that closely resembled one of Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings. There were two bare but Palladian-proportioned arched piazzas; in the middle of each was the statue of a man on a horse on a podium—classic 19th-century masculine heroism.

Except, naturally, not quite. The horse and rider were constructed like those cardboard dinosaur statues for kids, from insertable, flat, anonymizing sections. Said Mrs. Prada in her post show debrief: “I wanted an equestrian statue, but of course equestrian is not politically correct, so I told Rem [Koolhaas], ‘Let’s do an equestrian that is totally non-heroic.’”

Which allows us to canter on to the clothes. These were bookended between the bare-armed tank top looks at the top and high notch-collared two-button topcoats at the end: two particularly Prada-ish chapters in the recent masculine narrative of dress. Between them, even if Mrs. Prada indicated it wasn’t the intention, we seemed to take a survey of various professionally specific styles of dress seen through a house eye. There were young executives in three-piece suits or mismatched tailored separates, portfolios thrust between arm and hip, in different volumes of jacket. We transitioned to rural worker in mid-calf boots and oversized corduroy jacket, then onto a more urban kind of Prada hipster freelancer combination of the previous two categories that mixed elements from both and inserted some technical touches and piped sport raised graphics on pocket flaps. Two Macintosh-like rubberized coats matched with baggy pants tucked into beaten leather galvanized sole boots (plus rectangular lensed shades) were a little scientist-fights-contagion. Following those was an absolutely wicked green half-length coat that seemed particularly fashion show reviewer.

De-formalized top-to-toe cotton day pajamas with small ruffled bibs and some great treated shearlings followed. We arrived at those last two topcoats via a series of knits and silks patterned with punchily-colored gridded graphics whose palette nodded to the earlier separates and seemed related to the lavender and olive shapes on the set. They also shared something with the (Google searched in the back of the car) fabric patterns associated with Koloman Moser and other artists of the Vienna Secession (mentioned in an aside by Mrs. Prada during the treasure hunt chat at the end).

“Let me say what’s the point of this show,” she obligingly added: “That in the big—not ‘confusion’—but the complication of the current time between the world going wrong or going better, the discussion on sexes, on surviving or not… I thought to give an indication that the only thing that makes me calm and optimistic is to give value to work… to give value to things that matter in your life and your work. And so the creativity is mixed with technicalities, which is a little bit similar to the Secessionist period when ideas, creativity, and actual work had to be all together.” And going back to that post-triumphant equine statue, was this also about the nature of contemporary heroism? “Not heroic, but heroes… I want to give a hope that in this casino [translation: chaotic world] if you do well your job, paired with intelligence, and with culture, then this already is something… It’s to give respect to work, to effort, to fatigue, and to what is difficult.”

Source: Vogue

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Fendi Fall 2020 Menswear

Shortly after his participation at the LVMH Prize event last year, the shortlisted designer Kunihiko Morinaga of Anrealage was approached by Silvia Fendi. Would, she asked, he consider being part of her next menswear show? Morinaga said yes, of course, and backstage this morning he could be found watching the final lineup. Fendi, he noted, is a seriously big operation.

When his looks came out the planned Anrealage coup de théâtre did not quite come off. Those of us who attend his women’s shows in Paris could anticipate what to expect, but for the rest of the audience the transformation of his four looks from white slate to logo’d and patterned when placed under UV light was too subtle to startle.

However, that isn’t to say they didn’t make a fitting closing gesture at a show whose very interesting collection felt like it was about putting what is conventionally on the inside on the outside, and about modularity, and about technology, and about the place of classicism in an iconoclastic age—this collection was about a lot. It also looked good.

Backstage, Fendi said her reach-out to Morinaga had come out of the thinking that led to her solar women’s show shortly before that LVMH event last September and because her early thought of this menswear collection had included the notion of “transforming garments.” Away from Anrealage’s photochromatic transformation, Fendi’s shape-shifting attire including three-panel coats in fur or different tones of flannel that could be unzipped according to whether you planned to wear an overcoat, a jacket, or a bolero. There were also pants (from the front) and skirt (from the back) hybrids, which moved easily and looked attractive. There was another dialectic in the patterned jackets, coats, and hats: Some were in patched shearling that looked like cashmere, others in tufted cashmere that looked like shearling. “I want to give everybody the choice,” said Fendi.

She said her fundamental agenda was “to work on the essentials of the classic wardrobe of a man of tomorrow,” and one especially clever, modernizing twist on the classic was bringing the contours of linings and inside pockets to, a whole panoply of coats, vests and jackets. For good measure, Fendi added several credit card pockets and an AirPods compartment, and revived the historical cigar pocket. On contrast tailored jackets, leather jackets, and even shaved shearling, these outlines were both attractive and functional.

Another almost Surrealist but simultaneously functional play on interior and surface was the presentation of bags that appeared to be pieces of Fendi yellow packaging, rather than actual Fendi products. There was an oversize Fendi shopper in leather, and multiple Fendi boxes that were more like tiny trunks. Opening a box to reveal an item designed to be nearly identical to its packaging would surely be the ultimate Barthesian feedback loop.

The packaging riff extended to the garments via yellow taping stamped with Fendi Roma that defined the seams of certain outerwear pieces, and knit bags which had a satisfyingly hand-wrought roughness to them but that also resembled shoe and garment holders. For footwear, Fendi proposed a luxurified version of a mid-calf gumboot, also seen at Dolce, Ferragamo, and Prada. This was a collection rich in obvious luxury, in that the fabrication and construction was both extremely elevated and expertly done. It was also rich in ideas and ambition—a much more subtle but potent ingredient for luxury—and there were in those inside-out pieces quite probably a few of the future classics Fendi said she aspired to.

Source: Vogue

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Deveaux Fall 2020 Menswear

It's been two years since Tommy Ton joined Deveaux as creative director. The brand’s profile has risen precipitously since the street style photographer signed on, but it’s still a newish arrangement, and Ton and Andrea Tsao, Deveaux’s designer and co-founder, were in a reflective mood at a pre-fall appointment. “We’ve been evaluating what our strengths are and focusing on what’s sold well, but we also wanted to have more fun with this collection,” Ton said. Managing those multiple, contrary instincts takes discipline. Kudos to Ton and Tsao for managing to do so while producing some of New York’s most subtly cool clothes.

Tailoring has proven to be one of Deveaux’s early successes, so they returned to the subject this season, only this time around, going on feedback from customers, they updated their silhouettes to be more body-conscious. A wrap jacket in stretch bouclé fit sleekly underneath a sculptural peacoat in a snakeskin wool jacquard. Another category they have a good handle on is knits. It’s a crowded field, but they’ve got new things to say, among them a polo sweater whose collar buttoned all the way up the chin so it doubles as a turtleneck. “You know I love a two-fer,” Ton said. Also worth mentioning is an unstructured parka in waterproof tech fabric with a faux shearling lining. Its easy beltable shape is the result of people-watching; Ton admired the cocooning oversize shape on certain street style stars.

The unexpected fun came in the form of the colorful patch-worked stripes Ton and Tsao printed on organza (for a camp shirt) and silk charmeuse (for a bias-cut short-sleeved dress), along with another print of color-blocked marble and onyx. These added verve to the mostly neutral lineup, and that’s an agenda they should keep pushing as they continue to grow.

Source: Vogue

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Burberry Pre-Fall 2020

The main points of the Burberry women’s and men’s pre-fall are as difficult to encompass as is Riccardo Tisci’s task of covering the fashion consciousness of the globe. Perhaps that’s why he thought to include the motif of an old navigational map, which is printed on silk head squares and variously pleated, draped, and patch-worked. It’s a collection that isn’t anchored in any one idea; it travels between disparate tropes, representing the biggest British fashion brand to all generations, for all times and occasions.

Not that you can’t see who’s captain. Tisci’s eye for the elegant and sexy, his far-from-earthy, English-classic countrywear, his aspirational streetwear, and a Kim Kardashian West moment are all logged in this journey around Burberry world. (KKW already wore the beige jeans with a boned corset top in look 14. The skin-tight chestnut leather boot-chaps are actually built in, with pointy stiletto booties completing the sprayed-on illusion.)

Tisci always promised to expand eveningwear when he came to Burberry—he brought knowledge of the territory with him. Burberry evening suits are now a uniform go-to for men on red carpets, while the women’s nighttime is a fully calibrated repertoire ranging from a drop-dead backless goddess silver streak with a snaky train to a bubblegum pink plissé knee-length dress with slashed medieval sleeves, through to ingenuous black tailoring. Women looking for trouser alternatives for the awards season will doubtless leap on the standout opportunities of the graphic cutaway cape coat with a gold chain belt, and the sophisticated yet cool layering of a silk-fringed coat, tabard, and narrow trousers.

Branding for Burberry? Logos are threaded through, for those who care to carry the obvious house identifiers. The recognizable, rounded, retro TB designed by Peter Saville comes as a gilt buckle on handbags, printed on a vibrant padded gilet with a matching checked coat, and appears all over the place in linings. Otherwise BURBERRY is exploded in giant type on nylon parka sleeves.

The Burberry check is less in evidence this season, but Tisci’s translations of country fare very much are. With fashion in the mood for tweediness, his orange-lined checked poncho with a tunic trouser suit underneath looks highly viable for women who’d never go on a shooting weekend, but also for members of international country house society. Otherwise, Tisci’s sweeping view of demographics brings a Euro spin to what he does with quilting—turning a trad-boxy template glam on a jacket with a torso-clinching knitted insert and pairing it with a pencil skirt.

Men’s tradition is well served by a beige car coat that comes with a chocolate brown puffer lining, worn over a blue-and-white striped banker shirt with TB woven into it. There is something very Italian about that—the kind of Italian-ness that British men envy and are happy to buy for themselves.

For men too there’s a small section of Econyl outerwear, the branded synthetic fiber, which is regenerated from waste such as fishing nets, carpet, and fabric scraps. It’s one Burberry contribution to the new circular economy. At a moment when the climate crisis is at the top of everyone’s minds, resetting luxury to align with fossil-fuel-saving resources like this can’t happen fast enough.

Source: Vogue

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Tiger of Sweden Fall 2020 Menswear Collection

It’s a wonder he waited this long. For fall 2020 Christoffer Lundman turned Tiger’s Eye to that greatest of Swedish icons, Greta Garbo. True to his extremely thorough process, he commissioned a multi-authored book about his inspiration. This season’s took in Garbo’s early life, her Mata Hari–fueled emergence as a global object of focus, and then her fascinating elusive refusal to be subject to it: “I want to be alone.”

Really fascinating were the images of Garbo in 1971 practicing yoga on her balcony or walking to and from her handsome car while in her Klosters exile: These were shot by Ture Sjölander, the Swedish multimedia artist with whom she collaborated to seemingly promote her image as someone who rejected having an image to promote. Reportedly she proposed that Sjolander shoot a series of paparazzi-style pictures because “people seem to like them.” Later the images of Garbo included an altogether less-wanted portfolio: shots of her on the streets of New York City by Ted Leyson, a photographer who stalked the star for a decade. These proved more uncomfortable making, considering they lead to a simultaneous admiration for Garbo’s style and the non-consensual nature of the images’ creation.

And so the circle wheeled to the collection itself, which was shuttered by its own models as a statement about self image and control of it. The garments serviced self-possession too. From Scandi practical pack-a-macs to foulard shirts printed with Sweden-ized maps of New York City, these were handsome pieces in which to frame yourself. Shirting and jackets featured extra folds of fabric at the neckline to defend unwanted pap shots. The overall atmosphere shared the discreet unassuming masculinity of many of the outfits Garbo was—after her Mata Hari days at least—pictured in.

Source: Vogue

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London Fashion Week: Men's FW20 Streetstyle

London Fashion Week: Men’s recently kicked off the the Fall/Winter 2020 season with a schedule featuring Wales Bonner, Martine Rose and Paria Farzaneh. As well as the collection’s on show, the fashion week attendees also stepped out in a range of eye-catching prints, bold outerwear and statement accessories.

Bracing for the cold January weather, key outerwear pieces included items from Burberry, Prada and Junya Watanabe, while stand-out accessories from the streetstyle crowd included the Telfar shopping bag, a Louis Vuitton trunk bag and Dior’s Rimowa collaboration.

Additionally, the FW20 season also featured a focus on tailoring from attendees, with oversized blazers, formal footwear and ties all appearing alongside the usual streetstyle staples.

Source: HYPEBEAST

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