True Colors: Leonard Paris

There’s a time for politics, and a time for beauty. (And maybe it’s my preference for the latter that led to my review of Maria Grazia Chiuri‘s latest collection.)

There’s no point in trying to intellectualize (or god forbid, politicize) a collection like that presented by creative director Christine Phung: it just is, and gloriously so.

One of the great joys of fashion is escapism: as Carine Roitfeld calls it, “the dream.”

Carine Roitfeld calls it “the dream.”

 
Living Le Rêve

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As much as we need fashion to be a voice, positioned as it is in the crossroads of beauty, society, and culture — able to serve as a powerful fulcrum, to mix metaphors — we need the dream as well.

Indeed, Leonard founder Daniel Tribouillard (in conjunction with brand namesake, textile maker Jacques Leonard) was all about beauty, pursuing it all the way to Japan, where he was invited to modernize the kimono.

If the Fall-Winter collection presented at Paris Fashion Week has a ’70s vibe, that’s probably no accident, as we’re been seeing that on the runway for about four seasons now. But whereas most designers are content to stick to the safer parts of the era, that interface so well with our own — the narcissistic disco bling and “party all night” messaging of popular music — Phung gives us Leonard’s take on ’70s patterns: patterns being, of course, Leonard’s area of mastery.

The key to success or failure in this pursuit is color combinations: and with this much going on, the balance must be masterful, as indeed it is. From double-breasted blousons with butterfly prints to splashy kimonos — even ’70s-patterned intarsia furs paired with of-the-moment blue-green ombré hair — Leonard pulled out all the stops.

The result? A collection that resists comparison with anything else shown this season.

Indeed, a collection that’s modern, fun, beautiful … and unmistakably Leonard.

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Learn More

leonardparis.com

With love,

FWO

Masha Ma | Paris Fashion Week Fall 2017

From Dior to Desigual, if there’s one message we’ve heard loud and clear this Fall-Winter 2017, it’s the notion of female strength and empowerment.

Of these voices, Masha Ma will go down as one of most forceful, with a collection that’s angry and beautiful and daring.

Rebel Yell

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The current political climate has a lot of us angry. In the case of Masha Ma’s Fall 2017 collection during Paris Fashion Week, the outer trappings of the collection make skillful use of the vocabulary of rebellion in fashion — tartan, leather, and bondage gear, for example — and silhouettes that create strong shoulders, ready for battle. (Indeed, Ma refers to this collection as a “war cry.”)

The current political climate has a lot of us angry.

Deeper flecks of rage can be seen in some of the words that appear on tees, the strongest of which is “Ton Chien” (your dog), bringing an added layer of depth to the dog collars that appear on other looks. Likewise, “Social Distortion” is a rather direct reference to the California punk band.

Deeper flecks of rage can be seen in some of the words used

The most intellectual of these is “Transgressive Sexual Practice,” an apparent reference to American feminist bell hooks and the idea of “norms” prescribed by — and enforced by — a ruling elite.

It may be a difficult time to be a global citizen, but it’s a great time to be in fashion.

Fashion is more aware, more alive, more compassionate, and smarter than it’s ever been: and if we need any further proof of that, we need look no further than Masha Ma.

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Learn More

masha-ma.com

With love,

FWO

Punk Chic

Last season‘s Jourden presentation was a great experience, but a visit to the mind of designer Anais Jourden Mak is even better a second time around. Jourden is a brand that has its integrity in construction and curiosity in its details. They are made well and they are simply beautiful. No piece looks the same, yet they all fit the same glorious collection seamlessly.

This season, Mak went for a more baroque approach, continuing to use luxuriously rich colors with fabrics that have lots of lurex, adding depth with texture … just when I thought that wasn’t possible. One would typically think that so much lurex is sacrilegious, but not here. It even errs on passive. And as for baroque, even the models’ hairstyles had a touch of the ornate, with loose strands of curls framing their faces like a crown.

 
Chic Street

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The music in the showroom communicated hints of rebellion, with no precise decade, showing that the time is here and now to be chic and punk, but still dress impeccably.

The time is here and now to be chic and punk.

The designer is still holding strong against the non-streetwear trend. She refuses to compromise the elegance and wit a woman can show through dress. She is still going for luxury, while including some very minimal elements of deconstruction, such as the intentionally unfinished hemline, fussy frills, and a casual pullover sweatshirt. She does high and low in a way that looks exclusively high end, and the “low” is in the comfort, the confidence.

The designer is still holding strong against the streetwear trend.

Her flash of decadence knows no bounds and continues to satisfy in its flirty shyness and somehow still-powerful statements. The models stood by in the presentation, engaging with one another, bringing to life the feeling of sitting in a baroque Parisian salon, in 2017, lounging casually in luxury goods as if it were the new norm.

I’d be okay with that.

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Learn More

jourden.co

With love,

FWO

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