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Fashion Week Ramblings S/S 2019 - Women’s

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  • Ahimsa
    Vegan Police
    • Sep 2011
    • 1879

    Fashion Week Ramblings S/S 2019 - Women’s

    by Eugene Rabkin

    "Paris greeted me and the rest of the fashion circus with incredible weather – a rarity in my recent memory, as usually I find myself dying of heat or freezing to death. I am convinced therefore that god hates fashion, but these days maybe he hates politics even more, since even such an omnipotent force must operate on some kind of theory of relativity. So does fashion, and as usual, I saw collections that ranged from “I’ll never get this hour of my life back” to “Yes, please, come again.”

    It began somewhere in the middle with the appointment at the Undercover showroom. Jun Takahashi stopped his women’s shows in favor of men’s after last season’s phenomenal “We Are Infinite” collection. The S/S 2019 collection, called “The Seventh Sense,” was presented in a photo shoot. It consisted of seven vignettes, like a collection of loosely tied short stories. There were some parallels with the men’s collection from the same season that was based on the cult film “The Warriors.” Here was some crossover of gangs, and hey, which guy wouldn’t want his stylish female comrade in arms to battle the forces of evil, by which I mean the waves of basic bitches (of both sexes) that have overtaken all the major cities of planet Earth?

    As for the garments themselves, they were hit or miss. There was a fantastic black section that perfectly encapsulated Takahashi’s talent of mixing materials and creating just-the-right-off-kilter silhouettes. But in other sections of the collection the fabrics felt too plasticy or too pajama-like, and not in a way a high-end designer clothes should feel. I understand that this was the look that Takahashi was going for, but I wished that it was better executed. There will also be a new Nike collaboration for you sneaker freaks.

    My first show was that of Dries Van Noten, and the man did not disappoint. It was a more than competent collection in which the highlights were the hand-painted ensembles in white satin. Mercifully, Van Noten continued moving away from overabundance of ornament while retaining his signature clash of colors and patterns. But here they were more subdued, more graphic, which made that white satin pop all the more.

    Next morning I made my way over to Yang Li’s showroom. The London-based designer also skipped a show this season in favor of a presentation via a photo shoot. The rough theme of the collection was self-voyeurism, the idea that we are constantly watching ourselves and the blending the real and the unreal into something I guess, following Baudrillard, we could call hyperreal. The lookbook highlighted this by using two different models representing the same woman – one real and the other an idealized version of herself. In the clothes organza featured prominently, both revealing when on its own, and concealing when layered over wool and canvas.

    At Ann Demeulemeester we were treated to another disappointment by Sebastien Meunier. The clothes felt lifeless – it seemed like the work on the collection stopped half way in. The lack of energy in the clothes was unsuccessfully hidden by styling – with the veils/hats on models’ faces and fabric roses that felt so cheap that they only highlighted the underwhelming garments. Taken apart in the showroom, however, there were some desirable pieces, so a capable buyer should do quite well. But in the long term that is not a solution for a house that is not quite sure in which direction it’s supposed to go.

    Later on that day Uma Wang presented another lovely collection in an intimate show at Eglisse Saint-Merry. It was a perfectly eerie setting for a show that did not stray from Wang’s soft signature, while adding new propositions in the way the garments twisted around the body. I loved that she added big bags made of canvas – their rigidity was refreshing after the expected crushed velvet and soft cotton, and I would be glad to see if Wang continues to explore that fabric story.

    And then there was Rick Owens, who set fashion ablaze in a show that was as stunning as it was uplifting. It was held again in the court yard of Palais de Tokyo, and again the kicker was a deceptively crude showman gesture – this time a burning tower modeled after the Tatlin tower (google it). Deceptively crude is what Owens does so brilliantly, as every centimeter of his shows is astutely calculated, as is everything else in his esthetic universe. I couldn’t help thinking that there must’ve been a meeting with the heads of the museum, in which Owens had to propose, without flinching, setting up a bonfire in the middle of Palais de Tokyo. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on that wall."

    Read the full review on SZ-Mag
    StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store
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