Y/Project
Y/Project A/W 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans
(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Sound bite: For his A/W 2018 collection, creative director Glenn Martens focused on construction: ‘Everything is all about putting two bodies into one. You don’t know where the first body starts and where the second finishes; we have two shirts into one, jackets that merge together two pieces. Everything melting together. It’s a bit like love making,’ he said.

Mood board: With this in mind, the clothes had a twisted, energetic choreography. The sleeves of an eighties style leather blouson in burgundy red were exaggerated and brought forward from the back, as to replicate the drape of a scarf. Elsewhere sleeves were pulled forward on knitted jumpers. A heavy-duty gilet was blended with a hoodie; trousers had double waistbands. The mood was off-kilter opulence. The excessiveness of the drape – the extra sleeves, the double elongated collar on a check shirt – had a bracing confidence. Martens is busy unfurling dress codes.

Finishing touches: Ever since Phoebe Philo lined pairs of docile Birkenstocks with fox fur in 2013, the fashion world has rushed to replicate its surreal high/low appeal. It’s a designer’s job to filter the unexpected and to throw it back at us. Taking the baton from this season’s must have pair of big bird yellow platform crocs c/o Balenciaga, Y/Project unveiled its own interpretation of the divisive Ugg boot. Martens exaggerated their slouch, right up to the thigh; he layered the shearling too, staying true to the collection’s theme – the models looked like they were wearing one shoe inside another and another. You don’t know where one thing starts and another begins.

Y/Project

Y/Project A/W 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Y/Project

Y/Project A/W 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Y/Project

Y/Project A/W 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Y/Project

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

London based writer Dal Chodha is editor-in-chief of Archivist Addendum — a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He writes for various international titles and journals on fashion, art and culture and is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. Chodha has been working in academic institutions for more than a decade and is Stage 1 Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 he published his first book SHOW NOTES, an original hybrid of journalism, poetry and provocation.