Dear Vivienne,

God how long we have known each other! How wonderful. I want to pay homage to you as my collaborator, my friend and partner, my teacher and of course as my muse.

After examining myself, I felt like looking at you and the different decades of your life in fashion and what it means to me. It started with the 70s – Teddy boy tailoring, the 50s flower wallpaper and carpet from Let It Rock shop in the King’s Road and of course the rubber clothes which I Love so much.

Right in the middle of the 80s is your (Mini) Crini – Girl, which is made in Vivienne red Harris Tweed transferred into today. The 90s are represented through Dior-esque tailoring and exaggerated shapes, the hair print and the Krall shirt, which to this day we still make. Next comes UNISEX.

The white dresses at the end are sustainable, made from old stock and leftovers. There are two garments I copied: One is the mohair punk sweater you made (Knitted) for yourself and which says so much about you. Second is the catsuit from Sara (Stockbridge) which you used to wear when I first met you.

When in doubt: Dress up! One should never see the brain working in what you wear and one dresses in order to be eventually naked. These mantras of yours and so much more became part of my life and work. I still think to this day that you are the best dressed woman in any room.

Love you forever,

Andreas

Andreas Kronthaler For Vivienne Westwood © Copyright 2018

At the dawn of World War II, René Lacoste and his wife, Simone Thion de la Chaume, developed a wide-ranging tree development project for the golf course of Chantaco in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, around the family grounds.

At that time, a number of locals were spared from mandatory work in Germany thanks to the Lacoste family, who employed them to plant trees on the family golf course, as the law protected forestry workers from conscription.

This is how 50 000 trees, covering almost 125 acres, were planted during the war, many varieties of pine trees (Maritime, Scotch, Weymouth, Austrian and Umbrella pines), as well as red oak trees, while the workers, themselves, were kept safe. As for the Golf de Chantaco, it is the most tree-lined in France.

This is the starting point for our collection this season: a tale of empathy, of kindness and of hope. Its universal reach touched me, and I wanted to transmit it by immersing you as much as possible in Chantaco, the backdrop to this lesser known part of Lacoste history.

We hold the story in our hands, while it takes place before your eyes: elegant photos of the period showing the Thion de la Chaume-Lacoste family on their land; old archive pieces of golf wear collections of the 80’s and 90’s; the club house; the family home… These are some of the reminders of the past that inspired the imagination of our creative team.

We wanted to go back to the essential values, find meaning and refuge in nature: notions of mobility, protection, comfort and hybridity became natural guidelines. Those were translated into streamlined functional clothing, aiming for a sense of timelessness suited to tomorrow’s needs.

For the Lacoste 85th anniversary, I decided to unveil a lesser known side of the brand’s heritage: the Golf de Chantaco, its surroundings, as well as Simone Thion de la Chaume, René’s wife; two champions side by side.

The latest collaboration of the house is presented here, and available as of today on Lacoste.com. We are launching a partnership with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and creating 10 new polo shirts, where our beloved crocodile will exceptionally make room for 10 threatened species.

This collaboration is especially important to me, due to the extreme urgency and seriousness of its character. Ten looks of the show are dedicated to these ten species.

This is our way of planting trees in 2018.
Felipe Oliveira Baptista

Lacoste © Copyright 2018

Family as tribe. The fast modernity of Milan, with no nostalgia. And the cult of Italian savoir-faire, from the quality of the materials to the mental attitude of doing everything well and with style. Multi-ethnic, unrestrained by function or role, the Trussardi Fall Winter 2018/19 Men’s and Women’s Collection is writing a new aesthetic language dedicated to an urban gang of guys and girls, fictional and yet real, caught between tradition and contemporary revolutions. An antithesis? No, just the opposite: their way of dressing, their clothing is in fact the synthesis, the crasis, perhaps the solution to continuity between these two worlds.

First of all the Trussardi clothing collection, where each piece become elements: the oversize coat constructed to perfection, the trousers with a wide, perfect line, the fluid skirt with a split, the essential knitwear, the sartorial Blazer, the Biker jacket. And the leather: of the highest quality, handmade or glittery, brightened up with prints or woven into tartan patterns. And again embellished with markings like imaginary punctuation.

These are the milestones of Trussardi style, intentionally timeless, that shatter the distinction between city and mountains, daywear and casualwear. The tartan comes in all sizes, from micro to macro, popping up in every category, from day to evening. Prints of mountains or skiers go from the most athletic pieces to sleek eveningwear, overturning classic usage. And the colours, chosen from the shades of light that separate dawn from day and dusk from night, lend new depth to the iconic pieces in the collection.

The silhouettes are all vertical, large, often highlighting the waist with an air of solemnity. The lines, on the other hand, are fluid, fast and dynamic. It is a style oxymoron that can bring together agility and sophistication, references from yesterday’s wardrobe and the disenchanted attitude of today’s metropolitan tribes.

THE ACCESSORIES

Accessories are the frame for making the message even clearer. Maxi unisex pouches and backpacks in technical fabrics. Extra-large shoppers in printed leather or personalised with embroidered logos and fur details. The bag with a three-compartment interior in various colours and interchangeable straps is the result of the finest Italian craftsmanship.

The greyhound is stylised and becomes a new thin closure with a dual purpose: a shoulder strap or top handle. Finally the shoes: the men’s model, iconic and very traditional with the tongue and two side buckles, lends its form to the ladies’ new mid heel styles. And for the men, deck shoes, another icon from the classic wardrobe, are revisited in a creative way that overturns the boundary between sportswear and formal wear.

Trussardi © Copyright 2018

Antonio Marras © Copyright 2018

Ferragamo Autumn Winter 2018 marks a new chapter for the historic fashion house. Paul Andrew presents his inaugural collection as women’s creative director, joining Guillaume Meilland as design director for men’s.

This collection finds motivation in the frayed edges of modern decadence: a party once thought endless in the twilight hours jolting to reality at the first light of dawn. A new construct of dressing emerges: familiar forms are stripped back, loosened and elongated with ease and elevated functionality. Traditional silhouettes are expertly dissolved for a contemporary take on formal codes. Materials are unrivaled: from plush leathers to Italian wool fabrics, to heavy silk twill and soft cottons.

Broad strokes of colour were the starting point; merlot reds and mustard yellows mix expertly with parakeet green and deep vatican blue between hints of nude and blush. Footwear, the keystone of ferragamo’s storied history, is the seed of a collection that was purposefully visualized from the ground up.

The women’s collection channels the refined ease of Ferragamo’s legacy lit up with vigorous freshness. Leather is the fundamental material, in calfskin coats with impossibly soft cashmere lining and pull-on knee-high boots innabuk andostrich. Trousers in buttery nappa leather and wool-silk blends are exactingly cropped to pull focus downward to the shoe.

Knits are designed to complement leather pieces: from cashmere sweater dresses to ponchos. Shirt-dresses are fabricated from the material of silk foulards sourced from the archive. Galvanized block heels molded in three heights — whose metallic glazing was finished in automobile factories — have been sourced from archival 1930s-era Ferragamo styles. Merino shearling knee-high boots are dyed green and red like 70s shag pile carpeting and lined internally with lusciously soft calfskin.

Menswear is an elevated take on the utilitarian: authentic pieces have been restudied and revised with innovative construction. Shirting in silk twill, wool, leather and shearling — featuring hand-stitched finishing by master tailors — forms the anchor of the collection, echoing the womenswear pieces. Layering brings fluidity to a winter wardrobe.

Cotton bonded rain coats are updated in a relaxed, streamlined silhouette; inside, printed silk lining introduces a sly hint of hidden pattern. An english donkey jacket, lengthened and oversized from the original, is designed in double wool- cashmere with leather shoulders.

The all-new ‘the studio bag’ in crocodile, ostrich, shearling and soft calf is in great company next to petite camera bags and roomy overnighters with printed lining taken from cravat fabrics. The doppio gancini, Ferragamo’s iconic logo, is represented in ornamental hardware: oversized on triple-cuoio soled men’s shoes and at the waist as women’s belts.

Salvatore Ferragamo © Copyright 2018

J.W. Anderson © Copyright 2018

LANDSCAPES

“This collection is an evolution of my idea of CALVIN KLEIN—of a view onto American society—but now wider, universal. It’s an allegory for a meeting of old worlds and new worlds, relating to the discovery of America, the 1960s Space Race, and the twenty-first century information age. Reflecting the notion of democracy, there is no cultural hierarchy: the mixes emancipate clothing and references from their meanings, from their own narratives, and collage them to discover something different—a different dream. More than anything else, this collection is about freedom. A word that defineS America, and CALVIN KLEIN.”
—Raf Simons, Chief Creative Officer, CALVIN KLEIN

Titled LANDSCAPES, the Fall 2018 CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC show was staged in an epic and unreal terrain simultaneously recalling a cinematic soundstage. The backdrop draws on CALVIN KLEIN’S recent history, but reconfigured: fragments of Sterling Ruby’s installations for the brand appeared against parts of the nineteenth century prairie barn featured in the CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC Spring 2018 campaign; the barn walls are papered with billboard-scale images of the artworks by Andy Warhol used in the same collection; beside them, air-duct tubing emerges, an alien touch of the scientific or laboratorial. The floor is carpeted with deep drifts of popcorn: from a distance, it resembles snow.

The collection and venue showcased the ongoing and multi-level collaboration between CALVIN KLEIN and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, originally shown as shorts in cinemas from 1949, are also featured on select garments. The latter recall childhood innocence, the all-important idea of American Youth, and they can also be seen as a parable of the pursuit of the American Dream.

IMAGE CREDITS – RUNWAY: © 2018 Giovanni Giannoni

Calvin Klein 205W39NYC © Copyright 2018

Coach 1941 © Copyright 2018

From Milan to Manhattan. This season, Bottega Veneta presents its Fall / Winter 2018 women’s and men’s collections for one season only in New York City to celebrate the opening of the new Maison flagship store at 740 Madison Avenue.

With its longtime motto “When your own initials are enough,” Bottega Veneta has always celebrated fierce individualism. The idea takes flight in homage to the spirit of New York women and men who are free to fearlessly express themselves in a city that’s seen everything. “New Yorkers have a real bravery and boldness,” says Tomas Maier. “Nothing stops them. Nothing seems impossible.” For women, that means a wardrobe filled with unexpected textures and a vast palette of unique colors. The look is finished off with statement-making boots on a pavement-friendly low heel and a bag that’s both an artisanal masterpiece and pragmatic essential like the Palio Fringe Tote. For men, it means the sophisticated eccentricity of animal print shirting, harlequin checked tailoring and brashly patterned socks worn with “corduroy” suede loafers in jewel hues.

The collection explores the various facets of life in New York, including the necessary escape from the city’s intense whirl of activity, whether to the wilderness of the country or the serenity of one’s home. “I was thinking about the way of life in the city, which goes from one extreme to another” says Maier. “It’s hyper-motion and then it falls into almost total seclusion.” The Fall/Winter collection includes clothes that are designed to exist in the comfort of a beautifully appointed apartment—floral pajama silks for both men and women, and ethereally soft evening dresses, for women, that can both lounge and live it up.

The runway set is also defined by contrast and curating a world of one’s own. In this case, it’s the merger of New York and Italy, seen in a stark Brutalist backdrop filled with sensual Italian design—both iconic vintage pieces and Bottega Veneta’s Furniture collection. That eclectic mix echoes the Maison, our new permanent home in New York which is designed to be as comfortable as your own. “The Maison is inspired by the city in which it’s located, but it’s filled with Italian-made products and even Italian art,” explains Maier. “The idea of provenance is so important in the world of Bottega Veneta. The brand comes from a specific place that tells you a story. I wanted to bring that idea of a sense of place to our new store.”

The overarching vision of the season is rooted in architecture—a long-time passion of Tomas Maier and a defining ideal of the brand—drawing inspiration from the iconic and modern structures that are unmistakably New York. From there, Maier extracts the detail of the cube as a motif that weaves its way through the women’s and men’s collections. “It’s like a brick,” says Maier. “We use it to build the foundation.”

The perfect simplicity of the geometric form is utilized to create graphic patterns with surreal shifting perspectives. For women, it’s evident in richly hued intarsia silk dresses, lush shearling coats and on iconic bags including The Lauren 1980 and The Knot Clutch. Used in this season’s women’s jewelry, the cube turns earrings, rings and cuffs into artful sculpture in miniature. For men, there are joyously colorful intarsia patterns on felted grey cashmere crewnecks and jackets pieced together with precise, knife-sharp cubic forms.

The cube is an evolution of The Intrecciato Checker square introduced last spring. The checker continues for Fall/ Winter. The new women’s bag this season, a drum-shaped zippered tote called The Tambura comes in a variety of checker workmanships including Intrecciato Abstract and Paisley Checker. The men’s Intrecciato Checker Totes of spring are recast for fall in bolder colors. The most compelling new men’s bag for fall, however, comes in solid nappa. The MI-NY is a shoulder duffle designed with thoughtful and instinctive functionality to be the ultimate travel bag.

The cube’s architectural boldness is balanced with subtlety as Maier translates the sparkle of the skyline with a delicate silver chain embroidery that has a clever trompe l’oeil effect. It appears at first to be a top-stitch or windowpane pattern on tailored jackets, while bestowing a blink-and-miss twinkle on dense plaid coats. “It’s a very Bottega Veneta detail,” says Maier. “You have to get up close to the product to discover and appreciate it.”

Bottega Veneta © Copyright 2018

‘Youth In Motion’

Christiane F. – Uli Edel’s visceral 1981 film (based on Christiane Felscherinow, Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck’s book Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo) has long occupied a pivotal place in Raf Simons’ imagination. Simons, like many Europeans of his generation, was exposed to the harrowing world of Christiane F. in high school, where the film and the book were discussed as a part of the curriculum. Set in late 1970s, cold war-era Berlin – the Berlin of David Bowie’s Low, Heroes and Lodger – Christiane F. ultimately remains a cautionary tale, one that unashamedly and unapologetically depicts the realities of drug use and addiction. Images of Detlev and Christiane F., the film’s anti-heroes – as played by first-time actors Thomas Haustein and Natja Brunckhorst – populate ‘Youth In Motion’ as emotional markers for the persistent relevance – socially and psychologically – of Christiane F.’s story and Edel’s film.

Elsewhere Simons counters the often brutal nature of Christiane F.’s adolescence with sardonic texts drawn from Cookie Mueller (1949-1989) and Glenn O’Brien’s (1947-2017) ‘lost’ mid-1980s tragic-comic play Drugs, another kind of cautionary tale that chronicles the “chemical entanglements” of its straight-out-of-central-casting protagonists. The utilitarian design of the 2016 edition of Drugs (The Kingsboro Press/For The Common Good) – published with yellow and orange covers – is a recurring visual motif throughout ‘Youth In Motion’, as are Simons’ subsequent adaptations of its ‘basic’ design to create a series of applied, color-coded patches that index, in a deadpan manner akin to the Periodic Table, the abbreviated names of narcotic substances: ‘LSD’, ‘XTC’, ‘GHB’ and ’2C-B’, each with their own specific generational and (sub)cultural associations.

‘Youth In Motion’ implies movement – across space and time, and between inner and external realities – and draws freely from the lexicons of art, cinema, literature, music, the counter culture and the ‘attitude’ of couture. ‘Youth In Motion’ is presented in a mise-en-scene that echoes the salons of mid-century couture houses: the discrete number of models employed, the numbering system that identifies specific looks, and the opulent tableaux (food, drink, and flowers), itself reminiscent of a Flemish still-life. ‘Youth In Motion’ contrasts the volume and extravagant materiality of couture (evident in Simons’ use of satin duchesse) with the more utilitarian manners of pocketed ‘space’ pants and hooded tabards with their indexical narcotic references.

Ultimately, ‘Youth In Motion’ seeks to neither glorify nor condone the culture(s) of drugs; rather Simons seeks instead to consider the persistent, almost ubiquitous presence of narcotics (prescribed or otherwise) within our society and acknowledge our often conflicted relationships with them; in turn opening up a more nuanced dialog around the implications for a society where addiction and the causes of addiction remain largely taboo subjects, with – as both Christiane F. and the current opioid crisis demonstrate – often untold human consequences.

Part of the proceeds from sales of the ‘Youth In Motion’ collection will be donated to organizations that support those in recovery from addiction. Food from the presentation of ‘Youth In Motion’ will be donated to City Harvest: “Rescuing Food For New York’s Hungry”. To learn more, visit www.cityharvest.org.

Raf Simons would like to acknowledge everyone involved with the book and film adaptation of Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo for their commitment to and enthusiasm for this collaboration. He would also like to acknowledge the representatives of Cookie Mueller and Glenn O’Brien as well as The Kingsboro Press / For The Common Good for their permission to incorporate elements of Mueller and O’Brien’s play Drugs in ‘Youth In Motion.’

Raf Simons © Copyright 2018