"Techtopia" by BOSS

Presented last week at Milan's Allianz MiCo conference center, the BOSS FW '-23-'24 show was a jaw-dropping spectacle of set design. Sophia the Robot, created by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, greeted audience members as they arrived at the reception area of what BOSS calls their Techtopia, "a vision of the workplace of tomorrow, where game-changing technologies are combined with lush green spaces." Audience members sat at desks with Sophia while the models navigated the layout of the space. Maybe I have simply seen too many sci-fi films but this seemed much more DYS-topian than U-topian. There is something eerie about the five pods scattered around the presentation space that housed a man doing yoga, the BOSS synth-lab for manufacturing fragrances, a VR pod of people reclining in chairs engaged in an unseen digital reality, and two meeting rooms filled with floating plants on a conference table. The bright, clinical lighting is harsh and unrelenting. The entire scene is absolutely worthy of a sci-fi film (it feels a bit like "THX1138") and carries an undercurrent of dread... but the clothes are lovely! While not of the experimental nature of some of my favorite designers, current head of BOSS Marco Falcioni created a collection that Vogue journalist Luke Leitch called "an almost anthropological and at times surreal excavation of the tradition of 'executive dress' at a social moment where Lazy Girl Jobs are trending and 'Working Girl' [the 1988 film] feels like a historical document." Please do take a moment to watch the show below, and marvel at the stage design on the show.

https://www.hugoboss.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Misc. Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week has wrapped. Pitti Uomo, Milano, and Paris...check. Just London to go in February. Meanwhile, here are some dribs and drabs from PFW for Fall-Winter '23-'24 I found interesting, or humorous...or both.

Lazoschmidl is a brand co-helmed by business and life partners Josef Lazo and Andreas Schmidl who cite the legendary artists Gilbert and George, also business and life partners, as a model. Lazoschmidl is dedicated to non-binary clothing for men, and summed up their philosophy for Metal Magazine in one sentence: "Liberation, sensuality, body, rebellion, glamour, freedom." This collection certainly revolves around the body, sensuality, and freedom. Another one of their mottos is "Taste the forbidden fruit" and fruit is a central motif here. Fruit, flowers, an abstracted butterfly, and a leopard print show up on patterns but incongruously printed on sportswear and gymwear. The show itself was set in what looks like a gym with mats piled up in the corners. Is this a message for the traditional masculine trope of wrestler-swimmer-cyclist-runner to let go of restrictive ways of being and embrace something different, a new set of images and colors, in order to be freed from the socially-prescribed prison of masculinity?

Doublet created a humorous collection clearly based on the Furry phenomenon. Full body costumes were paired with causal pieces...the one that tickles me the most is the Wookie in a leather motorcycle jacket! Also on display: references to a fictional theme park called Doubland. Kudos to Doublet founder Masayuki Ino for including models of non-standard body shape and size.

And working our way down to the feet, Sankuanz showed some pretty sharp shoes...I don't think I've ever seen a pointed toe so pointy! They look like daggers...they might be able to inflict serious injury.

https://www.lazoschmidl.com/
https://doublet-jp.com/
https://www.sankuanz.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Rick Owens

I think from now on, when I speak about Rick Owens I am not going to call him "the fashion designer" Rick Owens, but "the sculptor" Rick Owens. Take one look at his catalog of collections over the years and it easy to see why: he functions and creates more like a sculptor, able to use fabric, leather, metal, and other miscellaneous materials (like pirarucu!) to create pieces of volume, scale, and heft...pieces that certainly exist in three dimensions independent of a wearer. I greatly admire his approach to clothing as wearable art.

I admire his intellectual rigor in creating collections as well. Owens always seems to be studying some obscure artist or time period, educating himself and us along with him, interpreting abstract ideas into his sculptures, and expressing those ideas in his own unique vocabulary. So for this Fall-Winter '23-'24 collection at Paris Fashion Week, titled Luxor, he looked to Egypt and that ancient civilization's architecture, an updated version of which can be seen in Brutalism, the monumental architectural style popular in the 1950s to the 1980s which often used raw concrete...and Owens' sartorial perspective has often been compared to Brutalism.

But he also mentions in passing "an almost Victorian silhouette." At first glance, it might seem odd, this mix of Victoriana and Rick Owens. But it works when one realizes that the Victorians were so named because the era was overseen by Queen Victoria, a widow queen in perpetual mourning. Black was the only acceptable hue for much of the Victorian era. And of course the prim and prudish nature and aversion to sensuality much less outright sexuality is a hallmark of the time. Owens has already mastered the black palette, and the expression of such rigid restriction is part of the Owens vocabulary as well. Look at how he accomplishes this with pieces that squeeze and restrain the body, along with cloaks, skirts, and details that paradoxically emphasize the body. Psychologically speaking, anytime someone (or a whole culture) ignores, denies, and tamps something down, the more it seeks an avenue of release, often in inappropriate ways. Owens said, "It’s a Victorian silhouette. There’s a prudishness. We remember that era so much for suppressing sensuality, but doing it in such an elaborate way that you couldn’t help but think about it."

And he introduced a new variation on the Larry Kiss boot...with a sort of rigid structure going up the shin, and closed with thick straps, it resembles a platform version of the type of boot one wears when one has a foot injury. They look fantastic.

His show notes cover a lot of wonderful information about the multi-generational artisans with whom he collaborates to create his garments including their aggressive actions to reduce their impact on the climate. But most importantly, he closed with a mention of the war in Ukraine, the only designer to do so thus far:
THERE IS A BITTERNESS TO CREATING A COLLECTION DURING A WAR — A DESIRE TO CONTRIBUTE OUR SOMBRE BEST IN AN INDUSTRY THAT MUST REMAIN STALWART, BUT WITH A SENSE OF FRUSTRATION THAT NOTHING IS ENOUGH.

https://www.rickowens.eu/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Songzio

Jay Songzio has been designing clothing for three decades now, but this is the first time I have posted a collection (although the brand did not start showing in Paris until 2006). The show notes for this FW '23-'24 collection at Paris Fashion Week are clear enough:

"Songzio’s fall 2023 collection, titled 'Reflexion,' captures the coexisting dualities in the human soul. Sometimes visible, yet sometimes invisible, this collection brings out the perplex senses and emotions that coexist within us. This collection is a self-reflection of who we are and who we appear to be."

But the form this inspiration took directs me to the ideas of armour and protection. Is Songzio speaking to war-like tendencies in humans? I see stylized references to Roman gladiator skirts and breastplates as well as the type of armour and clothing worn underneath by Shogun warriors. The overlapping plates in leather and even denim give an impenetrable sense. Is this collection the manifestation of the idea that we all have something soft inside of us to protect? Whatever it is, the cuts are amazing and the tailoring that achieves this effect is expert.

https://www.songzio.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Yohji Yamamoto

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 vernacular and his own internal logic. His creations--East and West 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.

But for his Fall-Winter '23-'24 collection just shown at Paris Fashion Week, he was thinking of the Asian influences that came along the Silk Routes into ancient and medieval Europe and how those cultures collided and blended. What really stands out is that Yamamoto, known as the King of Black for his penchant for working mostly in an inky color palette, used appropriately printed (a double ikat!) and richly colored fabrics like Japanese silk, velvet, and thick brocade, layered one on top of the other. I almost felt like I was watching a Dries Van Noten collection from years past. Just look at all those luscious, regal fabrics and patterns all piled together (click to see looks number 4 and number 6). The resulting mix is stunning, and especially so in Yamamoto's typical Romantic silhouettes which this time around also included tight jackets with several rib-wrapping belt closures. Glorious...

https://www.yohjiyamamoto.co.jp/en/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Saint Laurent

Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent has been working hard to do away with gendered clothing for both men and women; he actually sees a sort of middle silhouette that is neither masculine nor feminine, and for this arresting Fall-Winter '23-'24 collection at Paris Fashion Week, he said, "I really want them [men and women] to be almost one person. So women could be the men, and the men could be the women. No difference. I want more and more to put them at the same level. No distinction." I like this idea of, not the feminization of men in clothing, but the promotion of true genderless dressing. And when one takes this current collection into consideration, well, goal achieved. I love the large bows at the neck, the trailing scarves, the sheer tops, and the below-the-knee sweaters that are, yes, dresses.

But what makes it so arresting for me is the attitude of these garments...they are steeped in a dramatic, darkly seductive power that is thrillingly approaching the Vampiric. Just listen to the creepy, atmospheric music for the show in the video at the bottom...it sounds like the soundtrack to "Interview With The Vampire." And the way the garments are styled is positively sepulchral. Even the location for the show--the Bourse de Commerce which currently houses the Pinault Collection--feels like some exquisite underground crypt.

https://www.ysl.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Sean Suen

Sean Suen has had his own brand since 2012 and started showing at Paris Fashion Week in 2016, but has not been on my radar until now. His Fall-Winter '23-'24 collection is kind of amazing...I can see great imagination and rigourous skill in the tailoring and cuts. Being of Chinese descent, it seems natural that his inspirations are based in Chinese culture and for this tightly presented collection, Suen looked to the Yi or Nuoso people who live in the rural mountainous regions of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. They have a distinctive ethnic dress of garments that overlap and close on the right side along with turbans adorned with a single feather. These details can clearly be seen in Suen's marvelopus minimalistic interpretation of this native costume. But the Yi color palette is quite colorful, so how to explain the mostly black and neutral choices? It turns out that the indigenous religion of the Yi is called Bimoism, named after the bimo, shamans who wear distinctive black robes and hats. Indeed, many of these pieces feel solemn and ecclesiastical. Yet the oversized pearls dotted around and adorning the soles of shoes is a nice addition of modern luxury.

Example of Yi clothing with turban and feather

https://www.seansuen.com/