Jil gets a bad rap. She was pretty influential in the 90s and +J was actually nice, unlike UU. Now that she's come back I'm worried it's going to be Cardin 2.0 though.
Cardin 2.0 is harsh but I do think Raf made Jil his own and took the label to another level. As unfair as it sounds I just can't help but feel like Spring 2013 is kind of a more conservative variation of Raf's stuff, kind of a 'back to your regularily scheduled programming' thing. It's a transitional collection so it makes sense but still... And that's not to say it's awful, from what a remember Jil has always been nice. But that's it... Nice...
Young Croatian designer Damir Doma has opened his first flagship store in the French capital this month—stamping his romantic signature across no less than three light-filled stories on the hallowed shopping strip of Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The store comes as the latest addition to the 29-year-old's impressive résumé, after four seasons on the women's prêt-à-porter schedule and a thriving diffusion line, proving the German-born designer has quite the thriving empire on his hands.
After honing his trade in the ateliers of Raf Simons and Dirk Schoenberger in Antwerp, Doma launched menswear in Paris in 2007, and was recognized for a sensitive use of precious textures and a romantic, borderline Gothic use of draping. Since launching womenswear in 2009, his menswear became a hit amongst avant-garde buyers and fashion aficionados—with the collections quickly snapped up by New York's Atelier, H. Lorenzo in LA, and L'Eclaireur in Paris.
The space, designed by Australian architect Rodney Eggleston, is a testament to Doma's vision of raw, decadent luxury. A ceiling of hand-finished smoky mirrors was flown in directly from Eggleston's hometown of Melbourne, and expansive travertine marble slabs create a "strata" effect staircase that extends into each level of the store. "The interior is about levels and layers, just like my clothes," said Doma. "We have used materials in their most raw form to define the colors; structures and the feel of it."
Bare concrete walls carry the scars of previous repair and construction—offering a discordant anarchy that opposes the classical parquetry and bronze finishes. Glass vitrines hold accessories in exotic leathers or jewelry adorned with glittery pyrite. They glint and glisten, reflecting a seductively bright future across that mirrored ceiling.
The show was titled "Confusion" and it had a story line: rich kids at a private school spicing up their classic uniforms. A jacket would be paired either with cropped pants or with trousers puddling over lace-up sneaker-boots, and coats had unexpected proportions to collar or lapels.
"They are trying to get themselves into a new code, even stealing a few things from their priest-teacher — but always within the confines of chic clothes," Simons said, referring to a clerical collar, above a crisp gray sweater or circling a jacket neckline.
came across images of the balenciaga men's fw09 lookbook. images are kinda low quality but for some reason images of the full collection are hard to come by
Warning: Spoiler!(Click to show)
The music and performance art are really amazing and work very well together. Still ambivalent about the clothing. Some of it looks really cool on a purely conceptual level, but I don't like the way most of the clothing looks in motion. The hakama-style pants for instance seem pretty stiff and restrained, which is probably what he was going for, but to me it is just not attractive. I do like the t-shirts that can be worn as hoods though. They remind me of when I was a kid and used to do that with all my t-shirts
something about those hakamas you mentioned makes it seem like they were covered in clay and then dried, making them very stiff and brittle. sruli recht strikes me as wayyyyy too serious about himself, or at least that's how his presentations feel. I find it really off-putting. He described the collection like this: “This collection is drawn by the dust of a meteor’s tail in orbital decay, illuminated by our sun.” There is some really cool, innovative material involved (info here: http://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/10/circumsolar-by-sruli-recht/), but overall i just don't like aesthetic.
