Iris van Herpen Haute Couture FW2016 Backstage

It was an unforgettable and magical show/presentation yesterday at Iris van Herpen in the l’Oratoire du Louvre, an 18th-century Protestant church. The Dutch designer stood her models on concrete plinths as Japanese musician Kazuya Nagaya brushed his golden Zen bowls, producing pings and drones that reverberated through the space. That magical vibe was also created by the use of thin fabrics and special textiles used fro frothy and ethereal dresses in the palest colors, the simplest a long sheath resembling morning dew on wet skin. We took a close look backstage at the show.

Iris van Herpen Haute Couture Catwalk Show Paris FW2016

Dutch designer presented a moment of calm, sublime beauty and futuristic fashion wizardry during the haute couture week in Paris. Her models stood on concrete plinths as Japanese musician Kazuya Nagaya brushed his golden Zen bowls, producing pings and drones that reverberated through the L’Oratoire du Louvre, an 18th-century Protestant church.
Sound waves were the idea behind the collection, specifically cymatics, the science of visualizing sound waves into geometric patterns. Yet one needn’t understand acoustic dynamics to appreciate Van Herpen’s representation: frothy and ethereal dresses in the palest colors, the simplest a long sheath resembling morning dew on wet skin.
Van Herpen explained that the latter dress was achieved by embedding tens of thousands of Swarovski in liquid silicone. She did the same with hand-blown glass bubbles, producing a trembling, shimmering, extraterrestrial tutu.

Van Herpens world is one of laser cutting, 3-D printing and fibers five times thinner than human hair. The striped organza for halter dresses, densely pleated and then arranged in rows and swirls had to give the impression of sound waves. They were stunning.

Lanvin Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

Please enjoy the pictures for now, our review will follow shortly.

Dior Homme Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

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.

Dries van Noten Catwalk Fashion Show Menswear Paris SS2017

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.

Givenchy Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

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.

Rick Owens Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

Rick Owens goes soft next spring. He carried over his big pants from last fall, also continuing with bloblike drapes and whorled volumes. Indeed, his opening looks in gauzy gray fabrics approximated the gargantuan folds of blubber of this season’s mascot — a walrus.
Yet there was something regal about the cone-shaped silhouettes and the elaborate, sashlike folds worked into T-shirts and tops.
As the show progressed, Owens capped his pyramid-shaped pants with tiny, taut bomber jackets and leather blousons that stopped at the ribcage.

Owens also added shiny embroideries with radiant lines, like depictions of the Sacred Heart, to loose black robes and sculpted tuxedo jackets. It’s a descriptor coming up more frequently as the Paris season picks up steam. Owens’ priestly take on black-tie was certainly divine.

Louis Vuitton Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

Imagine a young boy touring the savanna in Kenya and alighting upon the Massai people in their vivid red and blue clothing. It’s one of Kim Jones’ strongest and most treasured memories — and it inspired one of his first hit collections as men’s style director at Louis Vuitton five years ago.

For his brisk open-air spring show, the designer got savanna heat and blazing sun, which didn’t seem to phase front-row guests David Beckham or Victor Cruz, both dressed in long-sleeve sweaters, styles that appeared on the runway in shaggy mohair with springbok fur patterns.

The mohair styles looked cool over checkered pants licked with silver zips, among the punk accents that spiked the African theme. The collection had a youthful zing, interspersed with luxury marvels, including a “denim” jacket made of matte crocodile, a molded leather vest with a diagonal zip and a Perspex blanket trunk etched with a giraffe drawing by Dinos and Jake Chapman.

Balenciaga Catwalk Fashion Show Paris Menswear SS2017

It was Demna Gvasalia’s debut men’s collection for Balenciaga — and the brand’s first men’s show in its 99-year history. Not since Hedi Slimane’s rockers stormed down the runway some 15 years ago has anyone at a major house paraded a silhouette this severe: coats and suits with shoulders as wide as a fridge, immediately followed by the opposite: suffocating, shrunken styles on models with ironing-board physiques, most of them cast on Instagram.

Time will tell if the David Byrne look makes any sense to young generations weaned on droopy jeans and sloppy hoodies. While challenging, these Balenciaga clothes had such conviction behind them — and a peerless execution — that they commanded attention, and are bound to be influential.

INDIVIDUALS SS2017

Yesterday iNDiViDUALS presented its latest S/S 2017 collection. It’s already the 21st collection of this Dutch womenswear brand. The brand is a platform for fashion creativity, managed by third and fourth year students of Amfi, allowing them to experience the demand of the fashion industry. It provides them with an unmatched experience for future endeavours post-graduation.

The brand is a collective of 27 creative minds changing every season. This creates a continuing narrative, responding to the evolving Zeitgeist. All tasks and responsibilities are covered by the design, management and branding departments. Fusing these three departments makes for the successful formula that is iNDiViDUALS.

iNDiViDUALS is an initiative of AMFI – Amsterdam Fashion Institute and the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

 

 

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