Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Flat and Soft Architectures: RE/Form by Zaha Hadid Design X Royal Thai

Creative minds on the lookout for intriguing ideas inspired by the world of interior design, will certainly find plenty of inspirations at the London Design Festival (15th - 23rd September 2018).

Fans of architecture, parametric design and modern geometries will be happy to know that the Zaha Hadid Gallery is presenting during the London event the new RE/Form carpet collection, a collaboration between hospitality carpet manufacturer Royal Thai and Zaha Hadid Design.

The collection features 22 designs inspired by four themes and motifs that are considered as an integral part of Zaha Hadid's work – so there are striated lines, ribbon-like projections, pixelated landscapes and organic cellular shapes, translated into Axminster-loomed and hand-tufted designs.

The patterns are layered and interwoven, while their colours - vivid shades of turquoise, red and green - introduce new nuances to Royal Thai's commercial carpets.

Connoisseurs of Zaha Hadid's architectures will undoubtedly manage to spot in the carpets included in the "Striation" theme the confluence of lines and the geometric complexity of the urban grid of the Rome-based MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, with galleries and corridors creating multiple major and minor streams. 

The "Ribbon" theme is a flat interpetation of the "Thallus" structure, originally presented in 2017 at Milan Design Week, and created employing automated additive manufacture technology.

The "Cellular" series combines architecture with science and the colourful three-dimensional cell-like hexagonal honeycomb motifs replicated on a black background evoke the jewels Hadid designed for Swiss goldsmiths Caspita and the cells carved on the KAPSARC (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre).

The "Pixels" carpets are dedicated instead to the fans of the digital world, even though there is a strong architectural twist here as well since the geometries replicated on the designs are borrowed from the Nanjing International Youth Cultural Centre and from the façade of the 11-storey 520 West 28th residential building, the first project by Zaha Hadid Architects in New York, located near the High Line. 

These may not be legendary flying carpets, but you can easily imagine Zaha Hadid's designs being replicated on a runway carpet for a prominent fashion week sometime in the near future (you can definitely imagine some of these designs in a Dries Van Noten runway).

During the London Design Festival, the Zaha Hadid Gallery will also present the new 2018 Zaha Hadid Design Collection, together with Zaha Hadid Architects' recent collaboration of 3D-printed furniture with Nagami as well as an exhibition by the studio's Computation and Design research group (ZHCODE), showcasing the ideas and technologies transforming the way we imagine, design and build our cities.

Interior Design Inspirations for Fashion Designers: Copper Textiles by Paola Lenti X De Castelli

In the last few posts we looked at some of the inspirations behind the latest fashion collections. One thing emerged about the S/S 19 season: most designers in New York and London did not come up with extremely revolutionary ideas and there was a lack of innovative surface elaborations.

Such effects can be rather expensive (and time-consuming when you start experimenting with them...), so that's probably why most designers focused on prints and volumes, or maybe some of them couldn't find an interesting inspiration. 

If that's the case, they should turn to interior design since it can be a great source of inspiration, and the good news is that they don't even have to wait for next year's Milan Design Week to see some intriguing ideas as there are events dedicated to design in September in Bologna - Cersaie, the International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings (September 24th - 28th) and Bologna Design Week (September 25th - 29th). 

Italian De Castelli will take part in both the events to introduce its new products: the company recently developed a series of pieces of metal furniture in collaboration with well-known designers, but the emphasis will be on surface effects made with exclusive materials and precious finishes. 

Among them there are "Marea", an effect consisting of overlapping oxidations applied to brass, copper and iron, and "Glow", an aluminium wall with square inserts made in natural black iron and iridescent steel. 

There are two effects that may prove interesting for fashion designers, the first one is called "Circle Wall" and it is a covering system by De Castelli R&D characterised by an inspiring overlapping of round modules with various types of oxidation on brass. 

With their satin, oxidized and brushed metal shades, they could easily inspire a chromatic palette (from gold to bronze to dark brown) or three-dimensional embellishments. 

Designed by Paola Lenti in collaboration with De Castelli as a solution to create screens and wall coverings, "Tela" consists instead in an oxidized copper textile.

The manufacturing, weaving and oxidation process contribute to lend the copper intense shades going from green and brown to purple, red, rosé and gold. 

Available in two different versions - open weaving or thick weaving - and in three ranges of colours, "Tela" was first presented at Milan's Fuorisalone in 2017, but was developed this year and it can be used as boiserie.

This is obvioulsy an example of a textile technique - the intrecciato - applied to interior design, but it would be intriguing to see if the material could be reimported into fashion and what kind of products could be developed with it, maybe luxury leather bags à la Bottega Veneta with integrated copper intrecciato inserts?

The Day Critics at London Fashion Week Convinced Themselves That Burberry Is Finally Reborn

Brainwashing is not so difficult nowadays: send the same message continuously on social media, refine it, tailor it to your targets in pure Cambridge Analytica style, and eventually people will start believing what you're saying.

So after months advertising Riccardo Tisci's arriving at Burberry and weeks emphasising how Peter Saville designed the new Burberry logo, it was only logical that the runway was going to be hailed as a moment or rebirth for a brand representing British heritage.

Tisci divided the show (and the collection) it in three parts - Refined, Relaxed, and Evening. The opening knee-length, buttoned up trench-coat cinched at the waist by a wide shape-defining elastic belt (a classic Tisci trick) was followed by high-waist trousers, pencil skirts and leather skirts with side ruffles, matched with blazers and fluid pussybow blouses (at times with horizontal and vertical checks creating illusionary geometries) borrowed from the archives.

Beige, camel, caramel, chocolate and nude tones prevailed in this section in which things seemed extremely restrained, proper and polite for Tisci's standards. Saville's new logo provided optical madness and actually worked better on shoes than on jackets, tops and pencil skirts.

Yes, there were sexy moments, and Tisci tried to break free a bit using head scarves in interesting ways, threading through jackets or collaging the scarves around the bottom of a raincoat, but the emphasis was on heritage and maybe on making the shareholders happy.

One garment that went unnoticed broke the serenity of the runway: a sheer blouse was printed with a Victorian photograph showing three kids, one of them in the arms of a hidden figure (this is pure Tisci here - finding a random image/reference on the Internet and using it for its visual allure...).

Victorian mothers often disguised themselves behind rugs, carpets, curtains, gloomy damasked tapestries and blankets and pretended to be chairs and couches or part of the studio backdrop to make sure a photographer could take a good studio picture of their babies as slow exposure times and impatient infants were recipes for photographic disasters. In some cases they were also disguised as chairs to keep a deceased child in position (post-mortem pictures were popular in Victorian times).

If you had known the story behind the picture you would have therefore spotted the exact moment Tisci's gothic sensibility broke with the serenity of the bourgeoisie mood and the commercial interest of the shareholders.

After the ladies came the menswear including plenty of anonymous office gear for the managers out there, but also shirts that may prove desirable with younger types (though maybe matching the sheer rhombus sweater with a Burberry house check was maybe an optical faux pas not to try in real life...). 

The punks that followed represented instead the core of the second section of the runway, and hinted at Tisci's personal experiences and his decision to move to London where he studied fashion and fell in love with the rebellious side of the British capital.

In this section he injected his personality and his trademark designs: there were plenty of leather mini-skirts, metal-trimmed and grommet jackets and red shiny "Don't Look Now"-evoking anoraks matched with flat Mary Janes with thick soles.

Bambi, a constant reference of Tisci returned in the images printed on the shirts, but also in coats and tops, one of them emblazoned with the slogan "Why Did They Kill Bambi?" a reference to the never released Sex Pistols film "Who Killed Bambi?" (and to the eponymous song written by Edward Tudor-Pole and Vivienne Westwood), but also a reminder to consumers that  Burberry has pledged to go fur free from now on, a sign of atonement after the revelations this Summer that the brand destroyed $37.8 million worth of unsold product (there were also faded animal prints in the show, maybe a further hint at Burberry saying goodbye to real fur). 

For the Burberry loving chavs who embarrassed so much the brand that Burberry stopped producing baseball caps, there were super cropped tracksuit jackets to wear with shirts, so there was truly something for everybody, even though there was also a major faux pas in here.

Tisci, who sampled snippets of phrases from Shakespeare and had them printed on his shirts (well, if Virgil Abloh does random words in inverted commas, Burberry can randomly quote Shakespeare - makes sense), and had the name of the brand and other words printed in white on a red background, ending up looking way too similar to the Supreme logo and maybe revealing the secret hope of turning Burberry into a hyper cool brand à la Supreme.  

In a way this was sanitised punk fashion for people with money, in the same way as the passports around the models' necks weren't an anti-Brexit call, but a sign of belonging to the Burberry Kingdom.

The show closed with black evening wear: the long jersey dresses, some of them subtly edged with sparkling crystals, will resist the test of time better than the designs with the logo, representing an addition to the Burberry wardrobe. 

The final idea of the collection, as the designer explained, was providing a wardrobe for all the family (who can afford it) - mother and daughter, father and son, while bringing back refined glamour and chic on the runway after the runway appropriated streetwear (then why on earth did Tisci have to recreate the Supreme logo?). 

Though at 134 looks the collection should have been drastically edited, there were some positive notes in this new Burberry: in his 17 year tenure Christopher Bailey suffocated the brand with his curatorial attempts (exhibitions, music curated by etc).

Tisci had the decency to turn to other people as well and Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja designed the music for the show, while in a couple of months the brand will release a collaboration with Dame Vivienne Westwood (Tisci is a fan). Hopefully turning to other enlightened minds in future will allow the brand to become more innovative and experimental, or maybe we are just convicing ourselves that Burberry is going through a Renaissance while we are just admiring the post-mortem picture of a fashion brand. Guess that, as it usually happens in this cases, only time will tell.  

The Wearable Lightness of Being: Delpozo S/S 19 Vs Fulvio Bianconi

It is not rare to spot connections between specific catwalk shows and recent art events or exhibitions, but Delpozo's S/S 19 collection, showcased during London Fashion Week, was indirectly well-time with the first Venice Glass Week.

This festival celebrated different artists and designers who work with glass through installations, workshops, lectures and guided visits.

Delpozo's Creative Director Josep Font was tuned on the same wavelength since his S/S 19 collection moved from an Italian artist well-known for his colorful Murano glass pieces - Fulvio Bianconi.

Bianconi worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, collaborating with famous brands, from publishing houses to companies such as FIAT, Marzotto and Pirelli.

After the Second World War he was commissioned by the Gi. Bi. Emme company to design perfume bottles and began working with glass manufacturer Venini in Murano, an experience that eventually led him to launch unique collaborations with local artisans. 

Among Bianconi's iconic pieces there are multicoloured patterned designs and ethereally fragile "fazzoletti", that is vases shaped like handkerchiefs.

Connoisseurs of Bianconi's ouvre will undoubtedly spot in the ruffles decorating Delpozo's jackets and dresses echoes of Bianconi's handkerchiefs; in other cases Font referenced Bianconi's patterns in casual trousers, shirts and tunics in striped silk georgette, or borrowed the abstract glass motifs locked inside Bianconi's vases to mould the shapes and silhouettes of his coats and dresses.

One floral dress that appeared towards the end of the show seemed to have a strong connection with the red and white dress of one of Biaconi's glass sculptures.  

Glass was the main reference behind light summer knits and weightless evening dresses with transparent silk tulle panels or with translucid organza with pink neon motifs, but it was also evoked by light natural fabrics such as linen for practical and functional garments, matched with embroidered gladiator sandals with transparent vinyl and resin shards.

Flowers - the second inspiration for this collection (Font usually combines in the same collection at least two different ideas) - materialised as floral patterns in a wisteria palette, in sequin embroideries and in the headpieces representing the branches of a wisteria tree.

As a whole this was a less architectural and more graphic collection compared to the previous ones, but the way Font interprets an idea or an inspiration through fabrics, shapes and silhouettes, remains intriguing. 

London Fashion Week and The Industry That Doesn't Exist

In a recent interview published on 1 Granary, a collaborative magazine uniting students from Central Saint Martins, The Royal College of Art, Parsons, and Antwerp's Royal Academy, Simon Ungless, Executive Director at the Academy of Art University School of Fashion in San Francisco, spoke about various issues linked with the modern fashion industry, including social media and celebrity fashion, things that often contribute to give us the distorted impression that everybody can easily become a fashion designer.

The most important point Ungless makes, though, is about education: "We are setting them up for an industry that doesn't exist," he says about students and institutions, a statement that can be considered as rather controversial, especially when we consider Ungless is a lecturer and a former CSM grad who was taught by Louise Wilson.

Yet Ungless is extremely honest in what he says: many universities all over the world seem to encourage their students to focus on the final shows, all efforts and energies aim at that one final goal. A scholarship, a prize or a collaboration may follow, together with some media reports hailing a student as "the next big thing", but, after six months, nothing happens and the media will have moved onto another name, the previous one forgotten, and the endless game of musical chairs continues.

Ungless - who recounts in the interview his early collaborations with Alexander McQueen when he used to create the fabrics and the young McQueen would design the clothes - seems to favour another approach, encouraging recruiters to visit the university and finding ways to match them with students. In a way this is a more logical conclusion to a fashion course and would also encourage students to learn more about the production side of things, possibly from the actual factory floor.

Which brings us to London Fashion Week and to one of the opening shows - Matty Bovan: exuberant and a bit crazy, joyful and representing a celebratory mood in a country slipping down the dark alley of Brexit day by day, Bovan is the last punk in London after Vivienne Westwood (sitting with her husband Andreas Kronthaler in the front row at Bovan's runway show).

Inspired by filmmaker Derek Jarman, Bovan came up with a collection that was a riot of colours: layered tulle Dior-on-acid crinolined gowns covered with ribbons and crocheted elements or jersey dresses that seemed to explode from within with masses of tulle were accessorised with gigantic head-dresses by Stephen Jones in which a mini-kitchen sink drama was unfolding.

Jones created indeed gravity-defying hats incorporating trellises, gardening gloves, artificial flowers, sushi platters, feather dusters, plungers and a wide assortment of other domestic utensils.

Bovan scribbled on workwear overalls, collaged fabrics together with cheap sewing machines (or maybe with a glue gun...) and printed on some of them bold messages such as "Infinite Void".

Based on pure DIY techniques, Bovan's show was a call for creativity to fight the pains of austerity and the perilous road to Brexit, these are clothes you may want to wear at the people's march on 20th October against Brexit to reclaim London as a hotbed of innovation and freedom, a capital that should be representing cosmopolitanism and not narrow-mindedness.

That said, as they stand, these clothes are more or less useless as they are not wearable and therefore not commercial: there is something with potential among this chaotic riot - the knitwear in bold and bright colours and crazy patterns - but it is still done in a very amateurish way.

Bovan should indeed be kidnapped and locked into a yarn factory or a knitwear manufacturing plant for 6 months where he may develop real knowledge about this sector of the industry. His creativity would emerge reinvigorated by the industrial know-how he is clearly missing.

If he doesn't do so, Bovan will keep on doing student-y runways until he is eventually co-opted by Vivienne Westwood becoming his punk heir (his collections reek of Westwood's historical anachronisms revised through the punk perspective with some Galliano thrown in).

At the moment somebody else has co-opted Bovan: the models sported bags by Coach that featured his artworks. Though already available at Matchesfashion.com, they do not look extremely innovative (hopefully the giant bumbag to wear as a shoulder bag will remain a showpiece...) and do not add anything new to the accessory discourse, looking like ordinary monogrammed bags with some crazy coloured patterns and details added. Yes, they may help Bovan making a bit of money to sustain his label and his dreams, but, before hopping onto his next collaboration, he may want to refocus and gather more experience from manufacturers or his story risks of going down the Meadham Kirchhoff road.  

Good Taste & Fine Craftsmanship: Grinling Gibbons, King's Carver (With Some Fashion Notes)

There are exhibitions that resonate particularly well with fashionistas (think installations combining clothes and artworks; modern paintings that may have inspired the palette for a collection or events involving avant-garde artists who collaborated with some kind of fashion house). Yet there are also other types of minor exhibitions that do not immediately ring a bell in the mind of fashionistas, but that can be intriguing inspirations for designers.

York-based Fairfax House organised for example this year "The Genius of Grinling Gibbons: From Journeyman to King's Carver" (on until yesterday), an event that celebrated a wood carver and sculptor with some "fashion connections" as we will see.

Born in 1648 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Gibbons moved to Deptford, England, around 1667. He gradually started accepting commissions from the royal family and was eventually appointed as a master carver. He became famous for his work at Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral (see the choir stalls and organ), Trinity College Oxford and Trinity College Cambridge among the others. At the National Trust's Petworth House in West Sussex, the Carved Room features an extensive display of intricate wooden carvings by Gibbons.

In his pieces he usually employed lime wood, creating Baroque garlands incorporating still-life elements, but also furniture and small relief plaques with figurative scenes.

Gibbons was well-known for integrating flowers and vegetables in his carvings (he often included peapods and, according to a legend, he would integrate a closed pod in his work, only carving it open once he had been paid; so if the peapod was left shut it showed that he had not been paid for the work...). 

They say that his carving was so exquisite that he once did a pot of carved flowers above his house in London that would tremble from the motion of passing coaches. As Horace Walpole wrote about him: "There is no instance of a man before Gibbons who gave wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements with the free disorder natural to each species."

There were also other types of wood carvings in which Gibbons excelled: the craftsman was indeed a master in reproducing lace as his limewood cravat with raised and openwork carving (dated ca. 1690) proves. 

Carved in imitation of Venetian needle-pointlace, such cravats appear in carved decorations associated with Gibbons (like those at Petworth). These pieces were mainly done to show the carver's skill and hopefully impress potential patrons. This particular cravat belonged to Horace Walpole and was normally kept in the Tribune Room at Strawberry Hill, his neo-Gothic villa in Twickenham.

In May 1769, Walpole received some distinguished foreign visitors wearing the cravat and a pair of gloves which had belonged to James I, stating that "the French servants stared and firmly believed that this was the dress of an English country gentleman" (the cravat is now in the collection of the V&A, London).   

In fashion the late Alexander McQueen was influenced by Gibbons especially in his last collection that included dresses reproducing carved effects (a motif posthumously printed onto bags to cash in on his idea...) and thigh-high boots with carved heels. Before that, in McQueen's thirteenth collection, simply titled "No.13", the designer had included a fan-like birch plywood skirt and dramatic winged top and prosthetic legs of carved elm wood (modelled on the runway by world-class Paralympic athlete Aimee Mullins).

Will there be any designs inspired by wood carvings during London Fashion Week? Maybe some unique jewellery pieces for a change? Time will tell, as the London runways have just started. But, fear not if that doesn't happen: you can bet indeed that Gibbons' works will remain a great inspiration for many creative minds. 

Diversity Wins on the New York Fashion Week Runways, but Genuinely Innovative Clothes Remain Elusive

Marc Jacobs has traditionally been be the closing act during New York Fashion Week for many years. But, if things change in real life, they transform even more quickly in the realm of fashion. And so it happened that, while his runway was late and people started moving to Rihanna's Savage x Fenty show, the impression spread that the excitement was somewhere else, to be more precise at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Here Rihanna staged a sort of jungle-like Paradise Lost, a Garden of Eden as somebody dubbed it, where women in Savage x Fenty lingerie and underwear, walked, danced and relaxed. 

Models interacted with dancers (choreographed by Parris Goebel), but in a way the movements, music, set and setting with tropical plants, a pond and a geodesic dome, were secondary.

The focus remained indeed on Rihanna's models, in all shapes, silhouettes and tones of skin. Sure, there were famous ones such as Bella and Gigi Hadid, and 9-months pregnant Rihanna's fave Slick Woods (who gave births hours later to a baby boy, ah the power of fashion...), the latter in pasties, barely there panties and body harness.

Yes, there was a bit of everything for everyone, from more sexy ensembles to playful tiger prints in bright colours; from sporty pieces and classic styles to items worthy of a seductress, among them embellished lace opera gloves and S&M accessories turned into fun pieces to strip them of their aggressiveness (see the heart-shaped whip donned by Rihanna herself).

The main idea was easy to grasp (and worked well with the tired NYFW audience): this was an all encompassing and all embracing show of races and cultures and, as the singer and designer stated, "a celebration of womanhood", as too often women are pushed to feel insecure about how they look, especially by that same fashion industry that promises to empower them. 

You had to applaud at the casting (no, it couldn't have happened in elitist Milan) and at the fact that the sizes of the products are super inclusive and include bras sized 32A to 40DDD and pants in XS to 3X.

Yet if you left behind these points and the Garden of Eden set, you realised you were just being sold underwear that you may find elsewhere (albeit not in the same sizes maybe...), including the usual pieces with a logoed jacquard elasticated band.

Other runways homaged diversity during New York Fashion Week, almost ending up coinciding with important news events: on Wednesday it was announced that New York City will soon join Oregon, California, Washington and New Jersey in allowing individuals who do not identify as male or female to opt for a third gender category -  "X" - on birth certificates starting Jan. 1, 2019.

The Washington State guidelines indicate "Gender X" as "including, but not limited to, intersex, agender, amalgagender, androgynous, bigender, demigender, female-to-male, genderfluid, genderqueer, male-to-female, neutrois, nonbinary, pangender, third sex, transgender, transsexual, Two Spirit, and unspecified".

Gender X triumphed on the Opening Ceremony runway: Carol Lim and Humberto Leon invited Sasha Velour, winner of "Rupaul's Drag Race" season nine, to curate their drag extravaganza-meets-cabaret-meets-runway show that featured more than 40 queer artists and entertainers, among them also "Rupaul" co-star Shea Coulee and Berlin-based Hungry (known as Björk's amazing make up artist).

The result was a show about freedom and fantasy with some superb striking poses added: in some cases the models were given Opening Ceremony fabrics to make custom looks, but in others they donned OC designs comprising sporty neon pieces, floral prairie dresses and lurex pieces matched with high heels or '90s Buffalo Boots and sandals.

The performers were the actual stars, but the clothes were something secondary, and it ended up like seeing the brilliant cast of a  vibrant theatre play with forgettable costumes (minus the tailored vamp houndstooth ensemble donned by Velour and Hungry's sculpted rainbow outfit).    

Gypsy Sport also relied on gender fluidity and an inclusive cast (with Lourdes Leon, daughter of Madonna, included - mind you, she asked to be part of the show), but with an added value - sustainability. 

Gypsy Sport 's Rio Uribe's passion for Planet Earth was symbolised by the opening looks - a pair of salvaged Levi's with the Earth replicated on them and a sort of world map carved out of a series of collaged polo shirts turned into a dress. 

Over 90% of the designs the runway were actually made with recycled garments: there were some intriguing ideas in a pseudo Chanel jacket recreated using strips of denim, in a denim bustier matched with a tulle skirt for that broken ballerina look and in a see-through PVC sleeveless jacket incorporating pressed flowers.

Uribe's grandmother's crocheted dollies also returned to decorate tops and trousers, while palm leaves sprouted from hair and cowrie shells accessorised some of the looks, hinting at nature. Using denim to carry the sustainability message worked pretty well considering that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair jeans. 

Yet Uribe's main problem is that at times Gypsy Sport's designs still look very amateurish and destined to remain in the underground: he states he has a plan to create his pieces in limited quantities, but it is clear he needs investments and budgets for such a step and time will tell if he ever finds them. 

As things stand the most authentic thing on the New York runways weren't therefore the clothes but the message of inclusion, and maybe that's not bad news: the garments may not look revolutionary, but we may still use the fashion industry for a higher purpose - celebrating diversity and rejecting all sorts of preconceptions.

Dress Like an Early '80s Doll (No, Literally): Marc Jacobs S/S 19

Barbie Dream Date was a versatile doll: released in 1983, the doll came with an elaborate fuchsia gown with purple piping and a sequinned top. The belted waist also featured a small satin flower.

The key detail, though, was a long ruffle trail that you could rearrange in different configurations. You could for example recreate with it a series of stratified layers à la Capucci or just opt for a grand (and slightly ridiculous) Dynasty-style.

Barbie Dream Date came with other friends such as PJ and Christie, dressed in the same gown, but in different shades like gold and yellow with orange piping and azure with blue details.

The ghost of Barbie Dream Date, or rather of her gown, reappeared during Moschino's S/S 15 runway show, and returned yesterday evening on Marc Jacobs' runway.

The collection was an extravaganza of frothy ruffles, bold shoulders, huge sleeves and shoulders and waist flowers that gradually became bigger and bigger till they seemed to engulf models. Lamés and sequins gave a metallic sparkle to the pastel palette.

Sure, there were more wearable pieces such as coats, jackets, slipdresses and an ample knitwear offer, matched with interesting bags and crystal chockers, but the fantasy "Barbie Dream Date mood" prevailed.

Yet if you sat and pondered for a while you realised that there wasn't really Barbie Dream Date behind all this: since it was first created, Barbie has always donned garments inspired by those created by real fashion designers and this collection reeked of several other designers such as Halston and Chanel, though it mainly moved from Yves Saint Laurent.

The multi-coloured suit with a cropped jacket and the jacket with rows of buttons (matched with Stephen Jones' boaters) were indeed copies of Saint Laurent's Rive Gauche designs from 1980-81, as interpreted maybe by the late illustrator Antonio Lopez in one of his stylish sketches.

In a way this collection was a glamorous sequel to the designs in the S/S18 season, but didn't add anything new to the fashion discourse in New York.

There was actually another incident at the show that seemed like an old déjà-vu: the runway started an hour-and-a-half late as some clothes hadn't arrived yet (Jacobs is not new to disruptions in the time schedule...).

As a consequence, some people left to catch their flights, others moved onto Rihanna's Savage X Fenty's show; those who stayed were left to reminisce about the early '80s, play with the ruffles of their Barbie Dream Date dolls and consider the future of Marc Jacobs, that, at the moment, looks rather uncertain and more or less detached from the reality of the current fashion industry.

Scuba Diving in Shark-Infested Waters: Calvin Klein 205W39NYC S/S 19

Sometimes trying to find obscure messages behind the inspirations referenced in a runway show proves to be a futile exercise, something that does not allow you to really look at the clothes or that makes you lose the point of the entire collection. 

The two main references on the runway of Raf Simons' show for Calvin Klein were for example two films - Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" and Mike Nichols' "The Graduate".

The former is a classic, with its scary gory scenes, but the movie is also often seen as a socio-economic critique with links to the then-recent Watergate scandal (the "corrupt authority" was represented by the local mayor in the film); while the latter is a tale of post-adolescent alienation.

Simons seemed more interested in how the themes led to the clothes than in finding deeper conceptual meanings (even though they were there as we will see) for this collection.

Staged on the ground floor space of 205 West 39th Street, the show opened with the ominous "Jaws" soundtrack and with the iconic early scene from Steven Spielberg's film featuring Chrissie Watkins going to swim but never coming back.

Simons worked with literal interpretations of his inspirations: there were vests and trousers inspired by black rubber wetsuits; T-shirts and tops with the poster of "Jaws" were remixed and branded with the "cK" logo (the sort of merchandise item that will attract younger consumers and that will literally be flying off the shelves...).

Scuba gear also pointed at fetish and S&M, especially when the vests were peeled off and folded over at the waist, revealing the models' bare chests, and created one of those dichotomies that Simons loves so much - protection Vs sex.

The most interesting effects were created by the contrasts created by the lining of the vests that quite often revealed colourful patterns that at times called to mind underwater scenes, at other tie-dye effects reminiscent of blood splatters.

There was some conceptualism going on in the '60s cocktail dresses that had been pressed and distressed to reproduce the effect of somebody who had just fallen into a vast amount of water but had managed to emerge again, miraculously alive but with crumpled clothes kept together with chain hooks.

Pleated skirts à la Miuccia Prada were also ripped as if the fabric had been bitten by a shark and they were matched with ample oversized cable knits.

Towards the end of the show there was an emphasis on tailoring, with college boys and girls ("The Graduate" part of the show) wearing jackets and suits matched with mortarboards and coats that looked like chic graduation gowns.

Decorative fringe garlands also made an appearance, linking this collection to the S/S 18 American Horror Story designs, while the soundtrack, comprising Bowie's "This is not America" referenced the A/W 17 show. 

Accessories included goggle-strap harnesses, red fisherman beanies and dry bag looking handbags shaped like lifeguard rescue floats.  

So, where was the conceptual twist? If you dived deep you would easily find a moral to the story: the American dream turned into a nightmare with Trump, but the beginning of this political nightmare also coincided with Simons' arrival at Calvin Klein (this theme has been going on from the very first collection designed by Simons for cK).

Simons has explored in the past American landscapes such as urban centers and Kansas-based barns, exploring American culture via cinematic snacks like popcorn, traditional quilts or prairie dresses.

The blood splattered beach he has transported his audiences to for this collection is haunted by a sense of fear and shark attacks representing unknown threats.

So in a way this could be a perfect allegory for US politics, for a bloodthirsty monster in power who has so far attacked all sorts of people, or it could be a reference to post-Watergate times and to Simons' own experiences at cK and in the States. 

While there was no optimism in this collection, there was a will from the designer to tell consumers that disasters happen, but beauty can come back, as he explained to journalists (in a rather vague manner as if he had a press officer standing next to him with a gun to his head...).

In conclusion, this collection may be a representation of our life as a survival horror film with a pop twist provided by some very commercial pieces like the "Jaws" tops, while at the same time it could be read through its political subtext telling us that we are swimming in shark-infested waters, but we will eventually emerge, cocktail dress crushed and ruined, stylishly in tatters but ready for a new (and better?) life.   

Could Crocheting Save the Rodarte Sisters from Their Horror Moods?

Horror is terribly en vogue as proved by Luca Guadagnino's remake of Dario Argento's "Suspiria". Yet the Rodarte sisters have been on a dark glamour bend since they launched their label.

Their latest collection showcased on Sunday during New York Fashion Week marked their return to the Big Apple and their passion for the horror theme.

The show took indeed place at the New York City Marble Cemetery on the Lower East Side, while rain was (very aptly) pouring down.

Graveyards have always played a fascination with fashion designers: Italian writer Giacomo Leopardi portrayed Death and Fashion as sisters in the 1800s, and the symbiosis continued in the fictitious photo shoot in a graveyard in William Klein's Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? (1966), an idea replicated in C(arine) R(oitfeld) Fashion Book in 2012.

The latest fashion house to join the graveyard trend was Gucci with Creative Director Alessandro Michele choosing to stage the house's Resort collection at the Alyscamps Roman necropolis.

Rodarte's show opened with ruffled black and red leather designs: in the past the sisters moved from Japanese horror films for some of their collections, but in this case the red ensemble donned by a veiled model evoked the ghosts of the young girl / assassin dwarf in the 1973 thriller-horror film "Don't Look Now" directed by Nicolas Roeg (a continuous reference in fashion that, as you may remember, was indirectly evoked also in Comme des Garçons' S/S 15 designs) and in particular the disquieting doll of the Japanese poster for this iconic Venetian horror classic.

Blood red shades returned at the very end of the show in two evening tulle dresses, but in between there were more corpse brides covered in layers of brightly coloured or pastel lace or sprouting explosions of tulle from the sleeves.

The effect called to mind that of a veiled corpse lying in a coffin and echoed Edgar Allan Poe's words "the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world".

The death spell was luckily broken by the fact that most looks were accessorised with metallic jewels shaped like birds, stars and flowers, by the models' hair decorated with piles of fresh flowers and by the arty make up inspired by the "Picasso 1932" exhibit that closed two days ago at London's Tate Modern (by Nars makeup artist James Kaliardos).

The collection also had a sort of Disney Princess palette (think yellow and Belle; lilac and Rapunzel and so on) with a Gothic twist, in a nutshell it also verged on chilhood, romantic moods and a certain degree of naiveté.  

While critics welcomed back sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy to New York Fashion Week after a two-year hiatus to Paris, the collection didn't show indeed a new achieved maturity.

The Mulleavys are indeed very much into fairy-tale dresses that quite often give you the impression they create them with the same modus operandi of a child, that is with scraps of tulle, a glue gun and lots of enthusiasm, but not much technique.

There was something in this collection, though, that may lead the Mulleavys towards a different direction in future - three simple Chanel-evoking striped crocheted dresses, two of them characterised by a '50s silhouette (but please throw out the cringing bonnet). 

They were not new or dramatic as the embroidered dresses and capes with hoods, but at least they were more wearable and functional.

Could crocheting save the sisters from their disquieting horror moods? Hopefully, but, in the meantime, if you fancy the crocheted look for the next Spring/Summer season, well, learn how to do it maybe moving from the vintage designs you may find by leafing through old magazines, like this gold dress from July 1960.