The spring 2017 collection of Alexander Wang was delightful and young and was lightly inspired by the surfculture. Youth culture and irreverence are key tenets of his brand and this time he choose fresh material and handled it with the balance of irony, relevance and good design. t Rash guards were interpreted into slinky dresses with neon seams. A black bikini top laced around the torso was worn over a sequin skirt that wrapped like a beach towel. A cropped fluorescent-pink sweatshirt with a palm tree print bore the phrase “mind detergent.” Wang also used a cliché Eighties-Nineties thorny tattoo into a print, and gave the ultimate symbol of slacker culture — the bathrobe — a witty upscale treatment in shaved mink. Flat sandals had straps that looked like surfboard ankle leashes and necklaces looked like lifeguard whistles.
Looks like Wang caught the perfect wave this season.
Dutch fashionlabel MAISON the FAUX showed for the first time in New York, invited by MADE. Their theme: Chubby Chaser. Once again MTF showed their view on fashion by the means of a conceptual collection presentation. A strange fat worshipping ritual took place at Milk Studios. Having models continuously circling around a giant blow-up fat-tent and worshipping the ultimate “Chubby Chaser” queen. MTF likes to shake thing up. According to their pressrelease: ““CHUBBY CHASER” is a never ending desire for more, more, more. In the insanely strange world of fashion, fashion houses act as godlike institutions; telling us how to look, act and who we should be. Fashion seems to be a repeating ritual of brands overfeeding us. We are never satisfied; only ever hungry for more.”
The “Chubby Chaser” collection consists out of a number of looks restraining excessive fabric and skin. Garments with carefully proportioned excess of fabric, breast augmentation dresses and cinched waists to exaggerate the overabundance of bare skin. Mi-parti, denim, leather, recycled furs, slits, knits, silk in earthy tones of nude as well as fleshy baby pink and baby blue. To create “CHUBBY CHASER” MTF worked under the art direction of Joris Suk and Tessa de Boer together with a number of creative partners called “les Résidents”. The label is convinced that young talent and concession free designs are an important addition to the current fashion landscape.
Each season Given designs a wide range of mens- and womenswear. Yet on Sunday afternoon the label decided to only present it’s latest womenswear collection for SS2017. A collection with no less than 47 contemporary ready to wear looks in a soft palette of army greens, powder pinks, beige and sandy tones. The Given models appeared confident and ultra feminine sporting their skater skirts, body con dresses, waistcoats, lace-up pants and ruffled, off shoulder tops. Hair slightly curled, sexy legs on display, strutting the runway on their elegant open heels. All easy to wear / street chic items that will appeal to a lot of young Dutch women. The label believes that what you wear is a powerful statement about who you are. And we believe that’s a given.
As soon we arrived at the Transformatorhuis we knew something was up. SUE ft. VJR Jewels was not going to be your average LAB fashion show. As a starter there was a dog laying front row (that’s a first!). But there were also women in wheelchairs placed in front of the rest of the audience. As the first model appeared it became clear: Warriors of the new revolution turned out to be a fashion show on wheels.
All models elegantly drove onto the runway in a wheel chair making a clear statement on diversity. And why not present a collection shown by models in wheelchairs and therewith portraying a refreshing image of beauty. As far as designer Kelly Sue is concerned beauty comes from with. Her fashion label Sue is all about diversity and this collection spoke about power, militancy and spirit.
That power was visible in fashion classics like the trenchcoat, the jeans and the pencil skirt. All developed for a sitting position to perfectly fit the customer in a wheel chair. Even with the selection of fabrics designer Kelly Sue kept her special customer in mind opting for elastic and airy fabrics. A new fashion category of ‘Seated Fashion’ is born!
The selection of casual must’ve designs was given some extra strength by the army inspired VJR Jewels attached to the clothes, the gloves, the accessories. A doggy on the runway accompanying it’s owner all the way up to the photogapher’s pitch gave the show a welcome soft touch; ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ all over.
Not your average AFW show, but a perfect start of this sunny, fashion filled Sunday.
Influenced and inspired by recent personal experiences Tony Cohen named his SS2017 collection Restrained & Release. Never before did he choose a theme so strongly related to his feelings, as he mentioned in the show notes. The feeling of being stuck versus finding freedom translated to couture creations in which bondage structures and airy supple silhouettes alternated each other.
Freedom was written all over the large and elegant silhouettes as the contrary was visible in tight enlaced looks cinched by black ribbons, leather belts and even corsets. Mostly black and white hues as well as mono prints symbolized Cohen’s idea of light and dark. A few touches of dusty pink were pleasant. Cohen’s signature pleats were given a twist, turning into fan structures.
Overall quite experimental ideas translated into more wearable pret a porter pieces. Now it’s up to the Cohen woman to decide. Does she want to be all tied up or let loose?
Since it’s Friday night we’re opting for the latter. Cheers to the weekend!
Aaand fashion week is officially started! Illustrator, artist and fashion designer Karim Adduchi (1988, Imzouren, Marokko) opened a fashion filled week with his ‘She lives behind the courtyard door’- collection. Ignoring trends and other fashion codes Adduchi took us to a place where tradition and mystic determine everything. His designs represented hidden beauty and strength, as colors and patterns also referred to Adduchi’s Moroccan roots, his dreams and barriers. Lots of focus on detail, which is much appreciated after years and years of minimalism. Carpets, both fresh from the loom and antique, are draped and sculpted, combined and mixed, their heavy wool textures contrasted by the occasional shimmer of elaborate modern details. All pieces are handmade and unique; the carpets hand-loomed in Morocco, the seams hand-stitched by Adduchi. Drawing inspiration from his own heritage, reconstructing it and using this history to tell us about courtyards and the women living in them. Adduchi invited us to create our own story, handing us the material to dream and to follow him behind the courtyard door. Adduchi is a storyteller, and fashion is his way of communicating without having to speak. Oh well, enough words, just take a look at the image gallery above and you get an idea.
The models zoomed through Dior Homme’s suspended roller-coaster set so swiftly that one would think they were on skateboards. Just when one thought athletic influences were running out of breath, Dior Homme gave them a second wind: from the stripes running over the sleeves of two-button jackets to the tracksuit chevrons painted with a roller onto suit and coat sleeves.
Designer Kris Van Assche also blended in references to punk, Goth and New Wave. Pants had utility pockets, D-rings or side stripes and assumed various guises: from skinny jeans to wide raver styles.
The designer also gave military bombers and blouses fresh verve, adding chevrons here, a striped polo collar there. Sleek trench coats came with the sleeves hacked off, or sprouting a parka tail with drawstrings.
An imagined view from Kelmscott Manor – the country home of writer William Morris – on arts and crafts today was the theme of Dries van Notens SS2017 collection. That translated into romantic visuals based on photo prints of floral tapestry and tonal patchworks.
Belted trenchcoats and high-waisted full-length pants were familiar categories but still compelling ones. There was a whiff of soft military, too, as the prints gradually grew into camouflage patterns, as seen on cropped carrot pants and utility jackets.
Van Noten was at his best when he played with hybrid looks: Rendering tank tops as knitted sweaters minus the sleeves, or mixing panels of tapestry prints with metallic technical fabrics to produce sporty-cool jackets.
The Givenchy menswear collection for SS2017 was a parade of military parkas in greenback prints that approximated camouflage. But Riccardo Tisci was thinking of something else: Spirituality, seeing with your third eye”, he told WWD. “Money sometimes makes us forget that.”
Tisci rigged his models for some kind of journey, backpacks laden with blankets — or split into three laptop-sized pouches attached to a harness.
The pants, as loose and flowing as sweat pants and often licked with stripes, gave the collection an athletic aspect — as did the chunky, graphic hiking sneakers. While the checkerboard patterns skewed a bit close to Louis Vuitton’s Damier check, the reference was games.
Our own fashiondictionary Dickies Comfortable, ugly looking shoes like Mephisto's, Clarks and Timberlands. Often worn by not so young men with sour feet who stand around a lot. Like photographers.