We all know by now that Raf Simons has sent in his letter of resignation. Another visionary sees black and we get an earful of white noise. Reading the accounts in the press leads one to believe that the couture crown is just too heavy for all but the most buff among us. Alexander Wang is just too lean. Galliano, too fragile. And now Simons is perhaps too sensitive, too distracted to continue. I'm ok with it. I won't say I'm happy, delighted, thrilled or even vaguely amused by the turn of events. As much as his work leaves me cold, even irritated, I don't wish him ill. To make it to the top of one's field is an accomplishment worthy of respect; not something to be taken lightly. In this case, my feeling from the beginning was one of skepticism. Sure, Simons did great things at Jil Sander but Jil Sander isn't Christian Dior.
Having spent the last 30 years in this business, having started my career in Paris and watching the action up close, the houses of Dior, like Givenchy, YSL, Chanel, Ungaro, and Valentino, were almost sacred. What came from them was taken by the world as near holy writ. The authority of these design houses were beyond challenge. To work at one of these houses was considered a gift from the Gods, one taken on like the royal families of Europe; it was an ordination that one carried until the end. That end was decided by the fates. Meanwhile, you did your best for the glory of the house. Like the many "petit mains" upstairs toiling in the ateliers, one worked selflessly to that glorious end. At Givenchy, Monsieur was the ultimate team leader. His success was in large part due to the master technicians who realized his dreams; even realizing them in ways that exceeded the beauty of his initial dream. I sat a few feet from Monsieur's desk and often stood over him as he sketched. (sounds far fetched, but true. He was a patient man with the likes of me, a recently college graduated apprentice, invading his studio) In the fittings that followed I saw more than once the original sketch was improved upon by the most capable technical hands in the world. The respect for the métier superseded other more self aggrandizing motivations. As much as it could be a team, at that time it was like an extremely well tuned team working as one. That included the models and stylists. Well that quaint idea is history. It's a free for all now.
At the risk of sounding hopelessly lost to the past, it's exactly that PAST (the Paris days and the NYC decades that followed) and many other experiences which inform my opinions today. Upon hearing of Simons' hire my first thought was why? How could someone who's aesthetic was antithetical to the Dior oeuvre be considered relevant? In simple terms, there was little romance evident in his approach. If you could characterize Dior in the simplest terms it was a very romantic way of dressing. And not just due to Galliano, but historically starting with Christian Dior to Yves Saint Laurent to Marc Bohan and on through the glorious tenure of Gianfranco Ferre to Galliano. Each of those designers added layers of mystery to the house's history that only enhanced the original mission statement of the master. With Simons it felt like the opposite. Other than his penchant for flower arranging on grand scale, the work was more about peeling away to the point of no return(s). The couture was no more or less interesting than the RTW with the same dead eyed girls marching to a beat only he could hear.
So with the benefit of a week's reflection, Simons looks like a man released from a velvet prison. Or perhaps he's feeling sympathetic pains of the mass exodus of men, women and children from the Middle East and chose to save himself; an innocent swimming to a safe harbor. And then maybe he just wasn't the right fit for a behemoth that no longer can even fit in front of a mirror, let alone take it's own measure.......
First of all, Hi everybody. How are all of you? Still engaged in the discussion that is fashion? I've been very much distracted of late with the mysteries and magic of plain, old, simple, everybody-can-participate in: Life. For all its dullness and repetition, life seems to hold so many more surprises than fashion. For one, it never ceases to surprise and stimulate one. Fashion doesn't do much of that. Life instructs and even rewards one. Fashion doesn't do much of that. Life has a way of taking one from point A to point Z with a million stops along the way. Fashion appears to do that until you realize it doesn't. It may seem like it's taking you along but in reality it's the train that rarely stops. It doesn't so much pick up passengers as it runs them down, even barrels over them.
The news of Alexander Wang's departure from Balenciaga comes as no surprise. That 3 years have come and gone with 10 collections under his belt is more surprising. The time just flew and to a large degree due to his positive contribution to the house. To my surprise, Wang's Balenciaga was refreshing, respectful and elegant. Contrary to Nicholas Ghesquierre's monotonous, self referential and tepid displays of (dud) pyrotechnics, Wang stepped agilely into the fray giving us a vision both sentimental and forward reaching. His use of the man made with techniques informed by the past, to my mind, was a masterful balancing act worthy of applause. I went into his tenure with little enthusiasm but the surprises kept surprising. Shapes, textures, color and their successful marriage is that near impossible trick so many attempt. Again and again, he succeeded or came that much closer, keeping this watcher on the lookout. Wang made Balenciaga cool. Something Ghesquierre could rarely do, certainly never sustain. I would hazard the same will be Louis Vuitton's fate.
So with the news of his departure, the question is "who's next?" Who cares? In a world obsessed with Khloe, Kendall, Kim, Kylie and Karlie, the lows are so low that the idea of high is just too foreign to imagine. Maybe they (Kering) should just break down and let Kimye, even Caitlyn have at it. Stop fighting that red tide and let the barbarians in. They can't do much worse than Nicholas or Lindsay Lohan or ... Maybe Raf Simons should climb off the back of Dior and go cock up Balenciaga. The fit makes more sense even if Simons makes little sense there or anywhere, for that matter. Watch the film "Dior and I" and you see how limited, soulless and dull are his gifts. It's all about his assistant......
Cecil Beaton's "The Fashion Glass", first published in 1954, reissued by Rizzoli and RIFE with typos, has recently re-landed on book store shelves. This old read is as prescient as if written earlier this month. It should be required reading for any and all. Perspective, that rarest of qualities is exactly what this tome delivers in spades. Perspective is that thing that's been hopelessly skewed, clouded and hijacked by the likes of our most feared of leaders, Mistress Wintour. I fear its a vision permanently changed, forever dimmed. The likes of Edna Woolman Chase, Carmel Snow and eventually, Diana Vreeland are discussed in detail. You never get the sense of their intrusion in the process. You don't worry that they had 3-D printers stashed in their purses for the sole purpose of creating their idea of the perfect designer....One wonders what he would have made of Anna Wintour. Unholy comes to mind. So does unfortunate. Her "involvement" in the process is not so much about the betterment of fashion but a flexing of her muscle. That her favors can be bought is a story too old and tedious to tell. The result of this meddling is what we are faced with today; musical chairs, whereby all the music and the few remaining chairs all are controlled by her. Not much game in that. This shepherdess is leading her flock right over a cliff.
I get it that the times change, that rules change and the needs of people change. Perhaps editors should be a bit more like presidents. After a few terms, it's not the worst idea to pack up your things and let someone else with some fresh ideas have at it!
I suppose next to the shows of Marc Jacobs, Carolina Herrera, Proenza Schouler, Tom Browne, Calvin Klein, Alexander Wang, Joseph Altuzzara and Jason Wu, the debut collection of Peter Copping for Oscar de la Renta was the hottest ticket of the season. So much anticipation and speculation roiled the denizens of Park Avenue and points farther east, south and west. What would he do? How would he handle the enormous pressure of moving the storied house forward. Would Annette, Oscar's still-in-mourning widow and all of her ladies in waiting give the nod to Mr. Copping? Forget the singing, the dancing, and courtliness of that legendary man of the world. Those arts died with him. Instead, what of Oscar's 6th sense for knowing precisely what his Ladies wanted, needed and craved? Could this Englishman schooled in the subtle art of French Haute Couture come to this raucous land of snap crackle pop and actually make an argument for the house's future? The answer to that question is a qualified yes.
Qualified simply because it was neither a triumph or a failure. The 47 looks added up to a safe, at times sparkling, but most often an almost quaint display of artistry. The first looks out with their lovely, weightless silk and lace trimmed blouses over short bias striped wool skirts had a youthful quality. So delicately wrought were those blouses that they looked untouched by human hands. That's technique at its best. Perhaps the absence of jackets or coats over those looks gave them that schoolgirl feel that every matron over the age of 60 craves. Though lengths were short, the high waists added that extra above that had so skillfully been excised below. One detail seemed to cancel out the other and all in the same piece. Then came the suits, the suit and coat dresses and printed silk dresses. Sweet but redolent of the days of Jack Mulqueen and the $150.00 silk dress, a working girl's dream! With prim coats in plaids and fur trim circling the hems and cuffs, this was not so much a fashion question as it was a style statement; familiar and yet hackneyed. Styling becomes a thorn at this moment as that sense of mad mixing and matching begins to color and underwhelm the work.
The Lady never slips off her pedestal. Instead that pedestal becomes crowded with the "codes" of the house we hear so incessantly about: sweetheart necklines, skinny belted uptight suits with little sex appeal, jeweled pumps and smart bags of indeterminate origin. Cocktail dresses abounded in racy lace, nude appearing bodices armed with boning to keep all that order in order. About now I started to yawn.
Gowns followed with many in black and white. For all those women who beg to have a dress with sleeves, well, come and get it. Copping showed his ability as a colorist with rich saturated mixes in short and long dresses. Nice. Where I found issue was that some of the colorations felt like timid YSL mixes and shapes smacked of older Oscars by way of new Diorisms. Nice but not great. Nicole Phelps of Style.com fame went further to question the fit of the clothes. The clothes fit. The studio there is so deeply schooled in the discipline of quality, make and fit that questioning that is utter nonsense. But like Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times, Ms. Phelps is a dilettante better suited to chronicling her own outfits than analyzing others, like the pot calling the kettle a plate.
Perhaps in time the collection Peter Copping wants to propose will appear without the weight of other's expectations, mine included.
It's 2014 and time to gird our loins for what could be a very interesting Fall season to come. As 2013 limps off to the place where bummer years go, the collections are just a matter of weeks away. For the diehards out there who just showed Pre-Fall a month ago, this spitting up of more, new and even more editorial stuff must kind of suck. There's no time to enjoy the fruits of ones labors before heading back to the delivery room. Last year was on the whole a very tame, monotonous period with lots of uninteresting clothes, tepid shows and high profile entrances and exits in the international HR offices. If anything it was the gaffes that were more interesting. Design has taken a back seat to banal PR for banal characters in the fashion business. Like a slow day in the newsroom, that day stretched for almost a solid year. When there's nothing to celebrate then you elevate the 2nd and 3rd tier and try to make the most of it. With that said, I do want to take some time to share the things I liked and the shit I loved. There were some shows that were outstanding.
Ralph Rucci staged 2 fantastic shows, spring and fall, and both were jaw droppingly beautiful. These are not clothes to look at on a video, you need to be up close just to take in a shred of his design brilliance. I know, big words for Ralph but hey, when it rocks, it rocks.
Valentino was consistently fabulous. Chiuri and Piccioli have taken that house to a new level. One that no one in Europe at this moment is able to touch. From evening clothes, amazing accessories to their budding daytime vision that's so smart and straight forward Perfectly illustrated in their Resort 2104 collection above, you wonder why no one else thought to do it. Unfussy, unstudied sportswear that oozes sophistication and ease. But their couture collections last year were splendid. Its so romantic and at the same time spare. Like a perfect meal it's all delicious and leaves you sated, not stuffed.
Maison Rabih Kayrouz (above) in Paris was a big surprise to me. He is so creative using the most basic shapes, combined and cut in sumptuous fabrics and eye popping knits. His Spring 2013 collection was full of inventive clothes incredibly modern and alluring. If I were a girl with an axe to grind I'd be covered in his clothes. Look and see what I mean. YUM!
Balenciaga by Alexander Wang was also a surprise. Chic, sleek, faithful and young, these clothes made Wang, the boy, a man. From the presentation of Spring2014, the mood of the show and the clothes were so assured, sophisticated. Its like Paris forces one to up his game or get out. I have to admit that as far as Wang/Balenciaga goes, "game on". Oddly, this new stage he inhabits has unfortunately upstaged his namesake gig. There was no pulse. Not everyone can juggle a ping pong ball and beach ball at the same time.
Carolina Herrera's Spring2014 collection (above) was a huge departure. Gone was the seriousness of hyper luxe and in its place beautiful simple sheath dresses and columns in graphic prints like angular Spirograph drawings in cream and brown among other chic color combinations and shapes. It was so easy and so rich it left you trying to figure out how she and her team did it. In a moment, they changed the mood of the house from self conscious to self possessed. There were lots of great clothes. I stood in the nose bleed section and still got chills. Just sayin'.
With the exception of some way beyond suits, jackets and some evening clothes and styling to make your toes curl, Lagerfeld at Chanel is starting to show his age. Sure, it's still the hottest ticket but more of that is built on hype and ancillary bits and bobs that somehow distract us enough to keep cheering. The show is the thing. Conceptually and scale-wise, Chanel is still the Queen but I'm not as curious as I used to be. The prospect of the future and the replacement doesn't keep me awake nights. Resort 2014 in Shanghai or Singapore, wherever, was pretty incredible. The girls with their 2 toned hair like a boy's cut with long unruly bangs made me wish I could throw my hair. It was very, very sophisticated. So worldly and knowing that it made you squirm...in a good way.
As far as extravaganza shows, one can not ignore Marc Jacobs staging of his Louis Vuitton collection delivered by escalator. That was in a class all its own. So beautifully choreographed. An army of checks in a myriad of soft compelling colors came and went in pairs, with matching shoes and bags. I didn't want it to end. That's saying a lot for Jacobs who too often leaves me cold. His Spring collection here in NYC for his namesake collection was also very interesting with a theme of bold stripes. Though it seemed a warm-up or afterthought in regards to LV it still had a nice kick to it. Very Edie Sedgwick, but Edie before the fall. Happy before the sadness.
I'll share some more things I loved from this past year. Books and scents were a large plus and travel was maybe the best of all.
* Images courtesy of Style.com
** Image layout courtesy of Garnet Spagrud
Looking at 2 legendary houses whose creators helped to change the face of fashion and in doing so changed the way people dressed, moved and acted. You could characterize one as the ultimate romantic (Dior) and the other the ultimate intellectual. One's passion flowed from his heart and the other from his head. Still they both reached a similar point. Both were all about shape, volume, architecture.
With the passing of these giants, their successors have an enormous responsibility to, in some fundamental way, honor the house's traditions while
advancing the conversation. It can be argued that Nicholas Ghesquierre did just that as did John Galliano at Dior. I, for one am in agreement on Galliano's tenure, despite his untimely dismissal. Not so with Ghesquierre.
His aesthetic I always found too hard, flat and forced. He is for me a stylist with a range that is neither very broad or deep, for that matter. All bark and no bite. Galliano on the other hand was a mad scientist; a theorist, brilliant storyteller, magician and above all a designer with more than
100 tricks up his sleeve, which brings us to this moment. Raf Simons is now at the helm of Dior and Alexander Wang is driving Balenciaga.
Honestly, I had little faith that either would add much to their new gigs but in one instance I was wrong. Alexander Wang appears surprisingly adept
at steering that bus. I'd go even farther and say that he's quickly transforming it into a sleek sports car with 4 on the floor and a convertible top. If his first collection was rather tentative and safe honoring the master with a collection that tread the shoals with many shapes and references to the past. This spring is another matter.
With the
opening exits he looked very assured with suits of woven braided leather sculpting short jackets with round shoulders and flared short skirts that never lost their sharp clean line. Added to that, leather pieces that came after, laser cut, buttery and substantial in subtle colors he seemed to be saying that he was clearly up to the challenge. There were some snoozey sections that if anything were a bit too contrived and stiff.
Then Wang woke up and sent out
a series of beautifully tailored jackets in white with precise tailoring and a row of delicate buttons. All of this was paired with a film of chiffon that floated over them like a mist. They were simple and superb. So many of the shapes had great flyaway backs that kept your interest coming and going.
The more artful evening pieces with stark corsets anchoring draped and tucked silk cloque' with blown out short skirts banded with what looked like wide satin ribbon. They were new, sophisticated and beyond what one would expect from such a young and relatively inexperienced designer like Wang.
Let's be real here. The street rarely gives way to the boulevard without a slew of pot holes and construction cones along the way. In short, he was full of surprises and almost all of them welcome.
The Dior show was a very different affair. One would come to expect greater things from a designer like Simons who has had years of experience at Jil Sander as well as designing his own collection. The set was yet again a cavern of abundant flowers both real and fake creating a space that looked claustrophobic. Like his debut collection I couldn't help feeling that the set was a foil for the clothes. Unintentionally or not he seemed to fall back on the same formula of presentation. You could squint and imagine you're cruising on a chic glossy surfaced superhighway with lush rolling hills covered in all manner of flowers real and imagined. So fast and so intense is the passing landscape until the camera pulls back and you realize the only thing moving is the backdrop. The actual vehicle you're supposed to be in is just a side window a partial hood and no seats at all.
This time the clothes were more adventuresome with jackets, the strongest statement throughout the collection, paired with all manner of skirts pleated and printed. There were beautifully cut coats with oblique shapes and eliminated details like closures and collars, pockets, etc. Underneath were stretch tanks with asymmetric cut out in back and askew cut necklines front and back giving the combination of coat and top or jacket and top a dynamic game of hide and seek. It was a chic game of graphics catch with beautiful saturated colors given to each player. It reminded me of how seductive Galliano's haute sportswear for the house had been in the past. Talk about a frisson. Then the heavy hand of self consciousness creeped from behind the bushes and sent it all to... well, off the highway and onto the shoulder.
Printed and pleated floral dresses with black bands circling the busts, wrapping around the high hip (to show a division, some clever redefining of proportions) with word embroidered bands of cloth saying things like"Whisper" and "Primrose Path"the pleats were arrested and so was our imagination just as it was about to be set free. This annoying trend of words printed on clothes and dangling from necklaces and plastered on bags is less than imaginative. It does for me the exact opposite. It forces the issue making you react and respond in ways that is as stage directed as the clothes. I can't imagine a woman with personal style wanting to walk into a room like a bit of graffiti, essentially a sandwich board advertisement for designer's stalled agenda.
Once the audience was passed that detour the show with a dizzying number of exits (70+) continued with more and more variations on shapes that either Dior or Simons had introduced previously but in those all important "new fabrics" that the press craves. I don't think the consumer really gives a shit about new fabrics. She just craves new and beautiful ideas. When the ideas are rehashed but worded in a way that is over the heads of the most curious of consumers and then re-interpreted by editors imposing all sorts of cultural, political and implausible meanings to the dress, jacket, bag or skirt we all end up in a crowded ditch.
Seriously, most designers just want to design something that for them is beautiful. Beautiful means different things to different people. But statements about the human condition, the bashing of tropes, the annihilation of notions and the Nobel prize for most humanitarian IT bag, are not really thoughts swimming in the heads of most designers. Its more like, who will come to the show? Can I get so and so for my front row? Will Anna let me close enough to kiss her ass? Can we get Karlie to open and close? Do these short shorts make my ass look big? You, know, stuff like that. Oh, and if we send this fur to Mrs. Roitfeld will she keep it, maybe even wear it? You know, shit like that. Still there was a dress in multi-colored stripes that was great. In fact there were 2 of them back to back that looked fresh ans sexy and unforced. A few of the Diorisms in stiff metallic silk with fitted bodices and dropped waists exploding below with skirts held aloft by means of some serious underpinnings. I loved these dresses though like Oscar de la Ho Hum they have become to look like a recipe and not a bold new nibblet.
So in the final analysis, when you look at these 2 shows your conclusions be counter to mine. Fine. But you also may see that Balenciaga has a powerful punch. Great clothes with real style and an elegant aspect that will make some women and others swoon. Dior, in contrast, is a whole lot of synthetic noise with little bite, just a cloyingly artificial aftertaste.
Nemo hit New York and all of New England just when the lights were dimming and the front row sucked their last bits of juice from the thirsty photographers. The timing seemed almost deliberate as though Mother Nature was saying,"Enough with this madness". With flight cancellations in and out of all three airports, she all but stopped editors, buyers and the European contingent from even entering the city. I felt for the designers who were scheduled without contingency plans. but the shows did go on with or without the important invited guests. It was probably a boon for the hordes who are usually herded into the "Select Standing"areas. Many of them scored front row seats so the press/video images would show a crowded venue. Unfortunately, it looks as though there was precious little, so far, to get excited over. If confused ideas, endless parades of tepid looks and mojo-less major players are your thing, then you scored. I've looked and looked and looked again and all I've seen is snow.
Alexander Wang just showed and the pressure of his appointment to Balenciaga shows. The cool is still sort of there , but the sex has left the building. It was like a lover that suddenly doesn't do it for you, no matter what drugs or drink you take. A sea of grey, dark grey and even darker grey was the palette and most of the jackets over skirts and knit Jammie pants fell below the hips in a twenties meets teens vibe. I liked that. What left me cold were the shapes which became arch, self-consciously studied and hard a la Cristobal but without any of the artistry or magic. It was a little like Marc Jacobs/Louis Vuitton.
The Wang collection looks like the distilled vision (the cheap one, more specifically) and his Balenciaga will most likely be the jacked up version. Even the sweaters and T-shirts that are his stand-by, crowd-pleasers were hard and awkward just like his predecessor, Ghesquierre. An origami fold at the shoulder of several jackets, coats and tops looks to be the message, his couture shape as it were. I fear there will only be more of that in the future. Not one look was sexy in a sexy sort of sexiness. If you like your sexy served up on a cold plate, all stiff and hard (and not in that good sort of way) then you can start the heavy breathing. I'm mystified because the Pre-Fall was pretty hot, kind of cool and not so leaden. I'm just sayin'..
* images courtesy of style.com Video courtesy of Vogue.com
