The scene was set on arrival at the venue for Kenzo’s fall 2018 show. Several film sets were scattered around the vast show space, replete with cut-in-half cars, half dining tables, sliced baths, and film-quality lighting and camera rigs. We thought before the show that this was to be the setting for the finale, where models would sit afterwards so the audience could meander around and snap photos for their Instagrams. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was something carefree about the boys on Comme des Garçons’ runway today. The show opened with a deconstructed tailored jacket, paired with a flowing superhero print trouser, and topped with a giant dinosaur head mask. It was like watching young boys playing dress up, still in their pajamas, but being forced to go outside by their parents.
Read More
Junya Watanabe took us to a tunnel off the beaten track in Paris this morning, which, for those without cars, involved a hike through the lesser known roads, that were familiar nonetheless through their mundanity. His dedicated followers had no qualms crossing city early in the morning in the rain.
Confronted with bureaucratic and logistical limitations in the run-up to his exhibit in Milan, Rick Owens decided to channel the angst he felt into his fall men's collection. And he titled it Sisyphus, after the king in Greek mythology whose punishment for a lifetime of hubris was the eternal uphill pushing of a boulder.
A stripped-down, cover version of Underworld’s classic banger Born Slippy, by Get Well Soon, punctuated the Dries Van Noten menswear show today in the former sorting office of the French Post and Customs and Excise. Van Noten has a knack for finding incredible venues in the center of Paris that no one has ever used before and this was no exception.
The invitation was giving nothing away, in true Yohji style. It was an orange cardboard envelope with an illustration of samurai fighting dragons and a single sheet of black paper in between. Black on the inside? Orange is the new black? Or, simply the king of black saying again, “I don’t bother you — don’t bother me.”
The rumor that had been floating around was confirmed yesterday, ahead of the Louis Vuitton menswear show this morning: Kim Jones, Men’s Artistic Director, was leaving the label after seven successful years at the helm. Jones is famed for his clairvoyant ability to see the rise of streetwear to the realm of high fashion, a trait that he solidified last season with the too-good-to-be-true Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration, a hype-beast’s wet dream. It almost seems as if that collaboration would have been the perfect swan song, but it was clear today that he wasn't quite finished.
For Fall, Walter Van Beirendonck again plunged the fetishistic, crypto-sexual realm of human behavior. The Belgian men's designer fitted holes at the nipples and crotch of assorted leather and latex jackets worn by waifish, Bowie-esque models. Elsewhere he spelled out sexual positions — i.e. Top, Bottom — and the word Pig, a label loaded with meaning among some circles. To be sure, this was an embrace of hard-core hedonism and erotic unorthodoxy in a neo-prudish age.
Che orrore! In tribute to Dario Argento, the Italian master of the horror genre, Gucci's Alessandro Michele visited some of the director's more memorable locations around Rome for his pre-fall 2018 collection.
