Welsh designer Paolo Carzana showed up on my radar last year when I saw his SS '24 collection "My Heart is a River For You to Bend" shown at London Fashion Week (seen here). He is a newer designer but has already amassed some clout: he is a recipient of the British Fashion Council NewGen award and has BFC support money to put on shows, and is also an artist in residence at the Sarabande Foundation, the arts foundation supported at the bequest of Lee Alexander McQueen.
His vision is fairly singular, much like McQueen. While promoting his Fall Winter '23 collection entitled "Queer Symphony," he said, "It’s mainly related to this idea that everything I was ashamed of as a kid is now my strength. Up until I was 17, I would literally pray every night to wake up straight, and pray to be normal. And every single day, I was bullied in school, when I didn’t even know who I was." It is a shared story among many of us in the gay community, one I have heard many times...surviving emotional, psychological, and often physical abuse to emerge on the other side, despite or probably because of it all, with a hunger and drive to create something beautiful, to express a force that could not be taken from us. I can attest to the truth of this from my own personal experience. So I feel great tenderness toward and interest in the creations of Paolo Carzana.
His sartorial vernacular is made of delicate fabrics tied and stitched together that seem like creations from some dream world, as if those wearing his garments should be lounging around on marble terraces in bright Pre-Raphaelite splendor, or in a lush production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." There is a hushed beauty to the silhouettes and construction of the garments that casts a spell. And while this Fall-Winter '24-'25 collection might have originated in a dark place, it is still this other, brighter world he strives toward. "It’s very much sort of journeying through the darkness, passing through the storm, up through the clouds, and onto the top where the light shines. I’ve called the collection 'Melanchronic Mountain.' Everyone around is feeling a lot in this moment, the way the world is. It's this feeling I have that it’s so hard to try and be positive, but we can. It’s within the bones that we carry, how we can transform that pain into hope."
I like that sustainability is important to Carzana: he is committed to using deadstock or recycled fabric, and he uses plant dyes and spices to color his fabrics, including introducing sappanwood reds and black walnut browns in this collection. But here is what I truly love: his cuts feel like they are memories of historical clothing, like tattered remnants of a far-away homeland after a shipwreck, and his beautiful sheer, ripped, ruched tops and trousers seem like they belong on wood sprites, elves, fairies. Or just those who wish to live in a softer, gentler world.
Simone Rocha is riding high after being the most recent guest designer for Jean Paul Gaultier. Since Gaultier retired, the house is hosting a rotating cast of artistics to reinterpret the Gaultier catalog (see my post about creative director of Balmain Olivier Rousteing's turn here) and Rocha's Fall Winter '24-'25 collection at London Fashion Week continued a Gaultier vibe. Interestingly, while she was allowed to go through the Gaultier archives to create her collaboration with the house (she delights in the fact that the Gaultier vault keeps garments in boxes they actually refer to as coffins!), she was allowed to view the mourning dress of Queen Victoria in the British royal archive at Hampton Court palace. Victoria of course wore only black after the death of her husband Albert...for the rest of her life, all forty years of it (what a love!). The confluence of history from two different sources along with her own creative juices gave birth to this collection titled "The Wake" which was aptly presented in the circa 12th century St. Bartholomew’s Church. It was a co-ed show but I am only showing the menswear here. Reflective of the period she was evoking, jackets sported twin shooting patches in faux fur or glass beading, a pair of Wellies were jeweled with pearls, and there was lots and lots of mourning black in silhouettes of a wistful, historical feeling.
This year is flying by already. Here we are, mid-February for London Fashion Week. Yesterday was the first official day and the Fall-Winter '24-'25 collection Chet Lo sent out was pretty interesting. Definitely looking to the future, with perhaps a little dash dystopia (or is that just me and I seem to be projecting dystopia everywhere I look these days, ha ha...but not really), his set played with fabrics that look like they were used in the criminally underrated sci-fi film "Aeon Flux." Garments were made of Lo's famous spiked materials which resemble the outside of a horned melon. Models sported horns on their heads as well but it certainly feels more like a comment about some kind of biomorphic body modification than a reference to anything demonic. There was also a marvelous skirt among the loose, flowing trousers (and some wonderful loose, flowing tops!)
Since 2000, Fashion East has been a fantastic incubator for talent in the fashion world. Founded by Lulu Kennedy MBE, Fashion East has nurtured the likes of Kim Jones, Craig Green, Simone Rocha, Martine Rose, Wales Bonner, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Per Gotesson, J.W. Anderson, all of whom can be found featured on this blog!
The current crop of talent at Fashion East includes young designer Olly Shinder who showed his FW '24-'25 collection at London Fashion Week. Shinder is inspired by his interaction with the underground gay fetish world. He told Vogue UK, "My fascination lies in uniforms with an underlying theme of kink. Delving into subcultures, I previously explored everyday uniforms. This season, I’ve taken the collection to the lab – think a bit scientist, a bit testing lab. I was drawn to the silhouettes of more extreme uniforms like hazmat suits, imagining how the fetish community might incorporate these pieces. Alongside, there are cotton and wool pieces reminiscent of ceremonial guards’ uniforms, with a more decorative flair evoking an old, classic English – perhaps aristocratic – aesthetic. My focus isn’t on specific places; I’m much more interested in a world of function, which is much more contemporary."
Thom Browne closed New York Fashion Week with a spectacular, theatrical performance showcasing his Fall-Winter '24-'25 men's and women's collection. He took inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's iconic poem "The Raven" and sent models out with black talon nails, black feathered hairpieces, and garments featuring ravens and of course the word "Nevermore." During the show, the Poe poem was read in its entirety by actress Carrie Coon who plays Bertha Russell on HBO Max's "The Gilded Age." Her reading should go down in history as the definitive version...watch the video below (the streaming and pre-show lasts until 23:00 when the show gets underway) and listen to Coon's effective, escalating emotion that leads to a chilling state of utter madness, while taking in the staging and set of a snow-covered field populated with bare, gnarled trees. And the clothing? Perfection.
Paris wrapped up yesterday...we only have London to go next month. So here are some little things I liked during Paris Fashion Week for Fall-Winter '24-'25:
Walter Van Beirendonck's collection had lots of holes...the belted coats make it look as though, disturbingly, the belt goes through the wearer's body!
Jeanne Friot, who has said that her collections are reactions to actual political situations, chose buckles as a motif for a show that lobbied for genderless clothing with a shirt that read "I will not stay silent so that you can stay comfortable."
Feng Chen Wang came up with a fascinating, biophilic rubber form into which sneakers slip...
...and Kenzo showed a really cool black leather boot that looked like a Motocross boot.
I've been trying to gather my thoughts about this latest Rick Owens collection at Paris Fashion Week and I am finding it a little difficult to do so. This F-W '24-'25 presentation is layered, dense, and maybe one of his most personal collections to date. And in a way, I found it personal for me as well.
First off, he did not show in his usual Palais de Tokyo venue he has used for many years now. In the summer, he mounts shows outside around the massive fountain at the Palais, and in winter, often shows inside, either in an underground Brutalist style basement area or in a glass-windowed space. Instead, he opened up his own home he shares with Michèle Lamy. Incredibly personal.
Speaking before the show, Owens talked about plane travel and walking through the huge retail areas of modern airports: they are all simply homogenous luxury malls now. "We are herded through that gauntlet of a very specific beauty and aspiration: of a certain kind of sexuality, a certain kind of face shape, a certain kind of body shape—and it’s unattainable. I call that standard 'airport beauty.' And I oppose it. And when I wear my platform boots as I go through the airport it is to oppose airport beauty. This is my resistance...That standard is dishonest...but this is a fully resolved Rick Owens experience. It can’t get any more honest or authentic than this. And that was my basic urge this season: to be sincere. I’m trying to participate in and contribute to all alternative beauties: to bombastic beauty, sometimes, but also kind and soft beauty."
Owens titled this collection "Porterville," another highly personal gesture. He grew up in Porterville, California, a place Owens refers to as a brutal, judgmental, intolerant community, as many smaller towns can be. His time there is not remembered fondly. I have my own version--when my family arrived in California from the East coast, the town we moved to was, while not as rural as Porterville, just as intolerant and judgmental and my early years there are not remembered fondly either. Finally, the soundtrack for this show is the Bowie track "Warszawa" from his incredible 1977 release "Low," an album from his Berlin Trilogy (my favorite Bowie albums). In the show notes, Owens mentions this track ("bleakness and yearning for dignity") and I feel similarly about it--it holds tremendous meaning for me. The song and the entire album was an anchor and a doorway to another head space for both of us.
I usually talk about the specifics of a collection, and while I could talk about the inflatable boots taking the place of the classic Owens Kiss boot, and the return of the knotted ball tops, I am sort of overcome with the force and meaning of it all, and his ability to translate such emotions into three dimensional objects. Here, below, are Owens' own words about the specifics of the collection but also about the feelings and ideas around it that overlap not only with the past but our dark present as well, full of, as Owens calls it, "some of the most disappointing human behavior we will witness in our lifetime."
WE ARE SHOWING IN MY HOME AND WORKING COMPOUND WHERE WE BEGAN SELLING OUR COLLECTIONS 25 YEARS AGO — A RESPECTFUL MOVE IN OBSERVANCE OF THE BARBARIC TIMES THROUGH WHICH WE ARE LIVING.
BUT WHAT I HAD INTENDED AS A RESPECTFUL RESTRAINT MAY END UP EXCLUDING A COMMUNITY THAT MIGHT HAVE USED MY SHOW TO GATHER TOGETHER FOR CONNECTION AND SOLACE. I MIGHT HAVE TO RETHINK THIS.
IN THE SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY, I HAVE INVITED SOME OF MY FAVORITE UTOPIAN CREATIVES WHO LIVE THEIR AESTHETIC DEFIANTLY AND COMPLETELY.
INFLATED RUBBER PULL-ON STRETCH BOOTS ARE A COLLAB WITH STRAYTUKAY, A LONDON DESIGNER WHO EXPERIMENTS IN ARCHITECTURAL VOLUMES AND HAS A GIFT FOR TECHNICAL CONSTRUCTION.
I SAW A CHEEKILY IMPROVISED VERSION OF MY KISS BOOT ONLINE AND COULDN’T HELP ASKING LONDON DESIGNER LEO PROTHMAN PERMISSION TO PRODUCE THEM.
SOME JACKETS AND PANTS ARE MADE OUT OF RECYCLED DISCARDED BICYCLE TIRES BY MATISSE DI MAGGIO, A MEMBER OF THE PARISIAN BDSM COMMUNITY WHO SPECIALIZES IN RUBBER GEAR.
I ALSO ASKED STEVEN FROM FECAL MATTER AND GENA MARVIN TO WALK OUR RUNWAY:
STEVEN AND HANNAH OF FECAL MATTER HAVE LONG BEEN COMMITTED TO BALANCING OUT FORCES OF CONDEMNING JUDGEMENT WITH THEIR EXQUISITELY CHEERFUL DEPRAVITY — SOMETHING I ADMIRE AND BELIEVE IN AND TRY TO DO IN MY OWN SMALL WAY.
GENA’S OFTEN DANGEROUS COMMITMENT TO HER AESTHETIC IN HER NATIVE RUSSIA IS RECORDED IN A BEAUTIFULLY MOVING AND STIRRING DOCUMENTARY BY FILMMAKER AGNIIA GALDANOVA.
COLLECTION PROPORTIONS ARE GROTESQUE AND INHUMAN IN A HOWLING REACTION TO SOME OF THE MOST DISAPPOINTING HUMAN BEHAVIOR WE WILL WITNESS IN OUR LIFETIME.
BUT THERE IS THE ETERNAL UTOPIAN HOPE OF SOMEPLACE BETTER.
KNIT SPACE SUITS ARE RENDERED IN RECYCLED CASHMERE, ALPACA, OR MERINOS, AS WELL AS TURBO-PLY SHROUDS AND HOODIES.
SHAGGY JUMPSUITS AND CAPES ARE MADE FROM HEAVYWEIGHT FELT MADE WITH THE LONGEST ALPACA FIBRES ON A SILK WARP, WHICH IS WASHED, FELTED AND THEN BRUSHED OUT.
13OZ JAPANESE DENIM IS TREATED WITH LAYERS OF WAX AND FOIL THAT ARE PRESSED, WASHED, AND TUMBLED TO CREATE THE FINAL CRACKED AND PEELED MEGACRUST LOOK. ALL OUR DENIMS ARE TREATED IN AN ITALIAN WASH HOUSE IN VENETO THAT PRODUCES IN SMALLER TREATMENT BATHS TO REDUCE WATER WASTE AND UTILIZE A WATER PURIFYING PROCESS THAT ENABLES THEM TO RECYCLE A PORTION OF THE WATER USED. ALL OF OUR DENIM WASHES ARE ZDHC CERTIFIED.
CARGO JUMPSUITS, CARGO TUNICS AND CARGOBOOTS ARE MADE IN A 1,5MM THICK VEG TANNED AND WASHED CALF LEATHER FINISHED USING ONLY NATURAL WAXES. VEG TANNING MEANS ONLY VEGETAL AND NATURAL TANNINS ARE USED IN THE PROCESS OF TANNING AND PRESERVING THE LEATHER.
A LIGHTER WEIGHT OF THIS LEATHER IS USED FOR BOMBASTICALLY SCULPTURAL DUVET JACKETS AND COATS.
ITERATIONS OF OUR STOOGES BIKER JACKET FROM OUR MADE IN JAPAN CAPSULE ARE FEATURED IN SUPER HEAVYWEIGHT HIDES TANNED IN HIMEJI, HYÕGO PREFECTURE, AND SEWN IN ATSUGI, KANAGAWA PREFECTURE.
WE ALSO CONTINUE OUR CAPSULE COLLECTIONS WITH BONOTTO, A 4TH GENERATION TEXTILE MILL FOUNDED IN 1912 SITUATED JUST BELOW THE PREALPS IN VENETO, ITALY. THIS SEASON THE MATERIALS ARE RESISTANT AND DURABLE. HEAVY CORDURA NYLON, UTILITARIAN WOOL CANVAS, AND COTTON WHIPCORD, ALL MADE TO LAST.
I HAVE INCLUDED OUR LONGTIME STAPLE GEOBASKETS, BUT NOW INFLATED TO A LOUDER PROPORTION.
THE FIRST TIME I HEARD BOWIE’S WARZSAWA WAS AT A STUDENT DANCE THEATRE REHEARSAL AT THE PORTERVILLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN 1977. THE BLEAKNESS AND YEARNING FOR DIGNITY OF THAT SONG SPOKE TO ME THEN AS IT SPEAKS TO ME NOW.
I REMEMBER THE SMALL BRUTALITIES OF A SENSITIVE CHILDHOOD IN A JUDGEMENTAL COMMUNITY. JUST AN AMATEUR VERSION OF THE BRUTALITY WE SEE HUMAN NATURE CAPABLE OF.
I always love seeing a Yohji Yamamoto collection...the highly regarded and highly decorated designer is one of those elevated, iconic artists who are singular. While I love when a designer takes inspiration, or inspirationS from some wild, fascinating, interesting source, Yamamoto exists in a realm of his own mythology, much like Rick Owens. Yamamoto has his own sartorial vernacular and his own internal logic. His creations--Asian and Western elements combined into a future/retro (sometimes ecclesiastical) sensibility, layered and slouchy Bohemian-chic garments, flowing asymmetrical cuts, all awash with an insouciant, rippling sense of Romanticism worthy of any French Symbolist poet--are timeless, since they are not necessarily tethered to anything outside of their orbit.
So for this F-W '24-'25 collection at Paris Fashion Week, Yamamoto showed his usual oeuvre with some variations on a theme. I get a pared-down feeling from the overall presentation, not as much flourish...perhaps the zeitgeist is a little harder these days. Despite this, the Yamamoto sensibility I described above remains. But the really fun part was the celebrities walking for him: the iconic German filmmaker Wim Wenders (looks 9 and 18), actor Norman Reedus (looks 10 and 17), the dancer Brandon Miel Masele (look 7), and musician and member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Warren Ellis (look 13).
Of interest: several journalists who attended the live show remarked about the languid pace and odd, hushed soundtrack. Watch the video below and see what you think.
Rei Kawakubo never explains herself for her Comme des Garçons collections. Sometimes the references one can glean from the visuals of the garments themselves are deep and layered, other times they are purposely absurd and humor-filled. So this Fall-Winter '24-'25 collection at Paris Fashion Week arrived with nary an explanation, as usual. Her show notes are generally cryptic and this one simply read: "SPIRITUAL WORLD. White is symbolic of prayer."
Okay. And what of prayer? What is it but an entreaty to some higher power for protection or salvation from something? And what would one be praying about at this particular point in time, in this particular world?
What to make of the white wigs on all the models? The opening section was an exploration of white, certainly, but we have a direction change into some black suits with mother of pearl button details, bringing to mind the British Pearlies, a phenomenon that can be traced back to the late 1870s where men and women wore suits adorned with pearl buttons to draw attention to the charities for which they were raising money. Charity, help, empathy...the action that can result from prayer. The next two sections presented looks on models wearing Phrygian caps, a type of hat that is associated with freedom and liberty, especially in the French and American revolutions. In fact, the cap is often referred to as a Liberty Cap. Garments in this section included skirts and what appear to be Victorian tiered bloomers, adding some softness. We wrap up with suiting but like so many designers this season, Kawakubo found typical Comme des Garçons ways to deconstruct and distort, making the jackets seem not like jackets at all. In fact, Journalist Sarah Mower of Vogue said, "There’s not even a shadow of toxic masculinity, militarism or aggression inside Rei Kawakubo’s woman-designed Comme des Garçons universe. If only that could be true of the world outside."
I have written about Sean Suen only once before, here. He has had his own brand since 2012 and started showing at Paris Fashion Week in 2016, but had not been on my radar until last year. And his current Fall-Winter '24-'25 collection at Paris Fashion Week is just as ambitious and interesting. Being of Chinese descent, it is natural that Suen's inspirations are based in Chinese culture. Previously, he looked to the Yi or Nuoso people who live in the rural mountainous regions of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi for inspiration (do look at the collection linked above). And his current collection plays with his childhood memories of growing up in China in the 90s when it was truly opening up to the world. Suen recalls this as a period when western clothing was supremely desirable. "At the time, when people looked for something new, they wanted a suit because what they had was a Mao jacket," he said.
Like many other designers this season (and in recent memory), he played with the scale and proportion of the suit, taking it out of the hands of the rigid business world: deconstruction instead of restriction. His collection could have been just another "oh-look-he-made-the-pants-too-long" moment (like some other designers). But upon inspection, one can see his background and skill in rigorous tailoring at play. The way he chooses to alter a section of a suit and how he chooses to do so shows mastery. It is as though he first reduced the three dimensional suit to two dimensions and adjusted within that framework. I like the little additions to the Western suit story he peppered in like suspenders and gold watch chains.
But from there, he diverged into some amazing thigh-high boots and fur stoles/muffs in a nod to genderless dressing (to balance out the suits?). I can't find any info about whether these latter items are vegan furs. I hope they are. Many high-profile houses have gone fur-free in recent years including Armani. No reason why a designer would continue to use real fur when the synthetic substitutes are indistinguishable.
"Oh, By The Way" is my digital scrap book of things I like, things I would share with a close friend and say: “Oh, by the way, do you know of this artist/ clothing or interior designer/ model/ singer/ actor/ gorgeous man… or, have you seen this video/ photo/ film... or heard (or do you remember) this song/ band... or, read this book/ poem/ inspiring quote... or, visited this place/ museum/ restaurant/ famous building... or, have you heard of this amazing new scientific discovery?”
I am dedicated to posting the positive, the fascinating, the beautiful, the interesting, the moving, and the inspiring and uplifting. Sometimes I post cultural as well as personal observations, milestones, and remembrances. And just like life, all of these things may often have a bit of melancholy or even sadness in them, which is what makes our time here so lovely and bittersweet and precious.
Some of the photos, art, poetry, and prose are my own original work, credited with my initials, JEF. When it isn't, I always try to post links to the original source material, but often I find photos on the web that are not linked or other material that is not sourced. In these instances, I post them without malice since it is assumed that such things, by being globally posted on something as uncontrollable as the internet to begin with, are in the public domain. If you identify the source of an image that is not linked, please politely let me know (without accusing me of theft, please) and I will be happy to provide a link. If you are the owner of an image and would prefer it be removed, I am happy to do that as well (again, without accusing me of theft, please).
I hope to inspire and entertain my readers with things that inspire and entertain me. There is a startling amount of beauty and creativity in the world and it enriches us all to participate in it.
All-time Favorite Films
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
After Hours (Hysterical, hair-raising ride through NYC at night)
Amelie
American Beauty (Alan Ball)
Baraka (Stunning, transcending—the "spiritus mundi" on film)
Belle et Bete (Cocteau)
Big Sleep, The (The epitome of film noir)
Bringing Up Baby (Hepburn & Grant—the epitome of screwball comedy)
Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, The (Greenaway)
Crash (Cronenberg—DIFFICULT subject, not for everyone)
Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg—ultimate modern gothic horror)
Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway)
Easy Rider
Edward II (Derek Jarman)
Erendira (From magic realist Marquez’ brilliant short story)
Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick's last film)
Fearless (Jeff Bridges—life and death)
Funny Bones (Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, and the brilliant Lee Evans)
Holiday (Hepburn & Grant)
Howard’s End (The ultimate statement of the unfairness of class systems)
