Karl Lagerfeld Keeping Chanel’s Future Bright

Dresses made of living peacock feathers, that respond to the wearer’s thoughts (cold? fluff those feathers!); smart ensembles that change colors*: we may not be there yet, but we feel pretty certain of one thing: Chanel will be.

Or at least, that seemed to be the message behind Karl Lagerfeld‘s Fall-Winter 2017 collection, which seemed to explore the future of fashion, but — we think — looked to accomplish something a bit more subtle: branding Chanel as the brand of tomorrow, as synonymous with “now” as Apple.

Chanel as synonymous with “now” as Apple.

 
All pictures here.

The future may be cold and metallic (or at least that’s the way it’s usually portrayed), but that doesn’t mean the future of fashion has to be. The collection made plenty use of metallics, but largely held onto organic warmth in its signature bouclé yarn jackets, and even a little tartan. It kept its brand identity intact, even as it took bold steps forward: a difficult balancing act, but one not beyond the ken of a master like Lagerfeld.

We were also thrilled to see some menswear on the runway, even as we wait breathlessly for a true Chanel Homme line, with or without the very estimable Hedi Slimane. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want a Chanel bag of his own, even if the word “purse” might still be difficult for many guys to stomach. (That’s okay. I’m a guy. I get it.)

What man wouldn’t want a Chanel bag of his own?

The future of fashion, we hope, is long and filled with endless possibilities.

But when all the technology is said and done, we’ll still need style.

And whether we’re “3D printing” clothes at home, from custom programs designed by top labels, and with “cartridges” of premium materials, we know one thing for sure.

The most style-obsessed of us will still be looking to Chanel.

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Learn More

chanel.com

With love,

FWO

 
(*Look for more crazy stuff like this in my new novel, RNWY, coming to print in September 2025. Or not. We’ll see.)

Christian Dior Autumn-Winter 2017

Vladimir Nabokov once said you can never actually read a book. Paradoxically, you can only reread it. The first pass is taken up almost completely by basic comprehension. The true appreciation comes on the second look.

As such, there’s a certain pointlessness to writing about fashion shows. A défilé de mode is a roughly 20-minute flash of art and sometimes spectacle, and the “stories” that come afterward are a rush to fit in into some sort of cultural or seasonal context.

But who cares if we sometimes miss the mark. It’s only clothes, right?

But just like rock and roll was “only” the music we loved to, and f*cked to — and we sometimes used to change the way society was structured — fashion is anything but trivial.

After all, our lives are anything but trivial, and fashion is the art of our lives. In that sense, it’s infinitely more important than a stuffy painting, slowly turning brown in a museum.

(“Would you destroy the Mona Lisa, or a cat?” an online quiz once asked. You may take the painting to the woodpile, please, because the cat is a soul — and art exists at the service of souls, never the other way around.)

All of which brings me, circuitously, to Dior AW17.

It’s one thing to see a collection live streaming on a computer. Another to see it in person. And yet another to touch it and experience it, as I had the opportunity to do at the Dior store on Avenue Montaigne in preparation for this piece.

It was last season’s collection: you know, the “fencing-inspired one.” But up close, an almost spooky storybook narrative emerged, with astrological ciphers in tarot-inspired designs, colorfully writ on ghostly, diaphanous materials.

Last season, Maria Grazia Chiuri seemed to be in the midst of a long, starlit stroll into a mystical universe more akin to our dreams than anything in real life.

And with the glut of selfie-obsessed IG stars set on endless repeat, and endlessly tweaked clickbait news headlines on constant attack, “real life” seems to feel more and more redundant every day.

So, having walked this misty mile, who can blame Chiuri for wanting to abandon her fantasy world this season and tackle “real life,” especially in a time of social upheaval unseen since the ‘60s, where an ideological war is raging in how we define some basic ideas in our society. The tagline “We should all be feminists” has never been more timely or à propos, the real shame being that some people should need reminding to look after their fellow human beings in the first place.

And yet, although the new military-inflected collection succeeds in being in step with the tempo of our times, something is lost. And where Spring ’17 was something so new and different that Monsieur Dior could have never predicted it, and yet would have been quite proud of it, I think, this season’s reinvention risks bringing Dior into an overlap with brands like Saint Laurent or Hood by Air, and entering markets where many a designer has already “feared” to safely tread.

Sometimes, as Tina Turner once sang, “We don’t need another hero.”

There are enough cookie-cutter “cool kids” in every corner of the fashion landscape, making enough of sound and fury (sometimes signifying nothing, other times much) to last a lifetime.

Sometimes we need dreamers and enchanters, to remind us of the better, freer, more magical world we’re fighting for.

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With love,

FWO

Thrifty Business

Most people are poor when they’re young. Or at least the lucky ones are, anyway.

Being poor has a curious benefit not often heralded in our riches-obsessed culture, where we marvel at celebrity suicides and meltdowns as if they were a violation of our religion that more, by definition, must be better.

More attention. More likes. More followers. More praise. And — of course — more money.

I don’t think I’m cut out for these shows, which is probably why I look like a lunatic in the audience. I loved my vintage Courrèges visor, and the outfit made for me by brilliant Lithuanian designer Inga Skirpka, but all I can really do at these things is wish the show would start so I could see the clothes, then get the heck out of there.

The soundtrack was “Goody Two Shoes” by Adam Ant, mashed up with some Sex Pistols. (Last season it was Oasis from Definitely Maybe, back when they sounded like a weird Beatles-Pistols hybrid.)

 
Walk on the Child Side

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(Photos: NowFashion.com)

Sometimes it takes a bit to piece together a collection, to the find the unifying elements (especially in the absence of any show notes — a bold move on Bill Gaytten‘s part) and that can be a good thing.

For AW17, Gaytten worked with a palette of textures, colors, and fabrics that seemed to have been gathered from thrift stores, and assembled with the help of pure imagination and ingenuity. There was a charm and innocence to the collection that belied the brand’s luxury status, recalling a bit of Vivienne Westwood‘s walks on the wild side, breathing in a world unfettered by rigid classifications.

One of the great joys of being poor — not destitute, of course, but having a normal and necessary struggle to create and sustain your way in the world — is improvisation, compromise, forced slowness, and appreciation.

Anyone who has been young knows the joy of discovering treasures in vintage stores, and finding ways to combine them in ways that work, even while they enable dreams of better things to come.

Indeed, savoring everything is one of youth’s great joys, and paves the way for greater appreciation later.

Savoring everything is one of youth’s great joys.

The new Fall-Winter collection — with its quirky curtain-cut patterns, antique ruffles, clunky shoes, and enveloping silhouettes — spoke to that rebelliousness, that privation, that magical era of youth where things are difficult … even as we don’t know how good we have it.

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Learn More

www.johngalliano.com

With love,

FWO

Agnès B. Fall-Winter 2017

With such a the monumental venue, expectations were already high. Les Invalides is most known as the final resting place of Napoleon. Having a fashion show at such a decadent building, a symbol of France, is both forward and audacious.

War and Fleece

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With that in mind, approaching the venue for the show was a bit puzzling and made me curious of what (if any) the connection would be. Very shortly after the show started, it became apparent.

The collection was centered around long and drapey wartime silhouettes. But you could still feel the luxury. In the interwar period, women’s roles changed severely. Women had to step into the workforce to fill in the shoes of men who were away fighting the war. With pants not yet being the wardrobe norm for women, dresses in heavy fabrics were made to keep women warm and comfortable, with room to work. Old pleating techniques no longer in style were present on dresses and skirts, really recalling a vintage flavor of couture. The collection featured long hemlines, utility fabrics and more somber colors, grounded with a beautiful bold and matte red lip.

Women had to step into the workforce to fill in the shoes of men.

You had the occasional bright color in this portion of the collection, with a jewel-tone green surfacing, and look #2 had a hit of luxe in the elegant silk pants.

The presence of the models was felt through the heavy fabric in skirts and bottoms. It was all about utility, just as it was in the interwar period. Thick wool pants were brought into the new century through a modern silhouette edit, and the ladies were low on the ground with chic loafers and low boots. One personal favorite was the look in which the designer had sewn backpack straps into the jacket to carry easily and add mobility — perfect for expedience.

The Italian gangster suit pops up again here, as it did with AALTO, and makes me wonder if there’s something bigger brewing here.

The coquettish side of the interwar period also saw the light as well, with the small touch of knit cashmere gloves, a buttermilk windowpane skirt suit and an old classic — a velvet dress worn with an arm shawl, with the modern twist here being multiple high slits. It appeared very conventional and translatable.

Then the beat drops. And marching in comes a pair of leather pants and a velvet choker. Here a new girl emerges, bringing with her a city chic feeling infused with some London punk. (There was even a Boy George moment!) The collection catapulted forward about 60 years and carried on with cool bombers and neoprene two-piece suits. Despite an ugly fake fur and a geometric print halter top feeling out of place, the mod portion felt the most trend-affected.

There was even a Boy George moment.

The different sub-collections were hard to follow. Another beat change introduced a third portion. Some chevron pieces and a suede jacket showed a more ’70s vibe, along with a burnt orange baggy pant suit.

My favorite look was an adorable deep purple dress with an ombre effect on its lower hem and back. It looked like it was on fire, sort of how the evening sky looks after it clears from a long rainy day, and the sun is ready to set.

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Learn More

agnès b.

With love,

FWO

Paul & Joe | Paris Fashion Week Fall 2017

Sophie Mechaly understands the individualistic young girl who shops Paul & Joe — she has a range of lifestyles, where not just one type of look will satisfy. From a casual get-together with friends to an elegant dinner out, she wants luxury, comfort and impeccable style.

The first look — a green corduroy two-piece suit — stuck us right in the ’90s, with a bit of a ’70s feel in shape and shag. The H-shapes in the collection felt reminiscent of Chloe staples.

She kept a few tenets of luxury chic from last season, but brought them more down to earth and onto the city streets, just as fashion has taken a turn to more lived-in looks. Look #11 paired a luxe pink velvet bell-bottomed suit with an oversized cozy knit, nailing the high-low approach. Even the hit of silk lapels added a fleeting moment of splendor.

High-Low Luxe

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Pearls were shown in high and low ways, too — on denim, handbags, and onto lace (younger than Ingie Paris, and easily adapted). We saw Nicholas Kirkwood and Givenchy adding pearls onto shoes last fall, and now Paul & Joe take pearls to the heart of the outfit equation. The pearl Canadian tuxedo is top of my list. J’adore.

Having Olivia Palermo in the crowd draws attention to the fact that Paul and Joe stresses good, clean silhouettes, and likes to have fun while doing it. The perfect example of this is my personal favorite, look #10, a wonderful deep-v magenta dress with flounce and feminine vibes. To me, it’s as though Maison Valentino and vintage YSL had a baby.

It’s as though Maison Valentino and vintage YSL had a baby.

Nothing in the collection was fussy or done in bad taste — and the Paul & Joe girl clearly loves a bit of fusion between pieces that look and feel luxurious, and others that are plainly comfortable and easy to throw on. Look #36 embodied this to the “T,” with the heavy, down, quilted coat layered on top of a velvet midi dress. I also loved the decadent velvet jumpsuit worn with velvet creepers, which showed a shabby but clean look, donned with a nonchalant expression. The few metallics, seasoned reds, and moldy greens seen throughout showed little care for color narrowness, but still presented a cohesive collection.

What an excellent end to another season here at Paris Fashion Week. Now that fashion month is over, we hang up our heels and prepare for the spring — through the weather and our wardrobes.

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Learn More

www.paulandjoe.com

With love,

FWO

Veronique Branquinho Fall-Winter 2017

(Main image: NowFashion. Full pictures pending)

For Fall-Winter 2017, Veronique Branquinho saw to it that a man’s left-hand twill suit from 1943 was at the very center of the season’s collection.

She deconstructed — and reconstructed — the bare bones of what makes a suit, to reinvent it in a range I haven’t seen before. The first look was a seemingly traditional vest and jacket, with the subtraction of long pant legs — replaced by bermudas, no less. Being a fall collection, she added thick white stockings: the kind as little girls we were forced to wear to church on Easter Sunday.

She deconstructed what makes a suit.

Fables of the Deconstruction

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There were blazers redesigned to a cape and poncho, which really grapples with the reinvention question. A pant is a pant, and you can only change so much. But to reinvent the standard garments a woman wears is the difficult task every designer faces season after season. In that respect, the designer succeeded. She even took the same suiting fabric and deviated into overalls and an accordion skirt.

Something I have seen at many of the shows this week (including AALTO and Ingie Paris) is massive, voluminous sleeves. Here we see them with sleeve garters, to give them extra texture and character, and in a nod to 19th century men’s fashion.

The borderline morose facial expressions some models wore reassured me of the zombie-like, drab, punk schoolgirl vibe the clothes were intended to convey, as with the cowlicked hair we saw with Yohji Yamamoto last season.

There was a massive presence of Swarovski rhinestones, stuck overtop sheer shirts, that recalled a ballroom dancer’s costume. It gave a crazy, incomprehensible contrast to the borderline boyish punk/Victorian message everything else was suited up to convey.

In spite of some mixed messages, one standout corduroy oxblood suit in particular kicked ass and took names, showing that although deconstruction is in Branquinho’s vocabulary, construction is at the core of her talent.

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Learn More

veroniquebranquinho.com

With love,

FWO