The Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović, who, over the course of her career has pushed herself and her body to extremes, calls her latest work – Balkan Erotic Epic – her most ambitious yet. Part of this is due to its scale: eschewing the intimacy of her previous works, the performance, which was premiered at Manchester’s Aviva Studios this month (October 2025) and will tour internationally in 2026, features a 70-strong cast and unfolds over a sprawling four hours.

But it also draws her back to her childhood in Belgrade, Serbia, a period she has described as one of ‘communism mixed with mysticism’ (then, the city was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). Her strict parents were installed in the country’s Communist government (she has previously called them members of the ‘red bourgeoisie’), while her religious grandmother – who brought up Abramović until she was six – engaged in spiritual and healing rituals, a dichotomy that has no doubt influenced the artist’s oeuvre.

As such, Balkan Erotic Epic begins with the funeral procession of Josip Broz Tito, former president of Yugoslavia, led by a swaddled figure evoking her mother, Danica (played by Maria Stamenković Herranz, she appears throughout). From there, unfolding over 13 acts – through which guests are encouraged to wander and congregate – Abramović weaves personal memory with collective history, enlivened by bold, erotically charged reimaginings of Balkan folklore and ancestral traditions (acts include ‘Fertility Rite’, ‘Massaging the Breast’ and ‘In Scaring the Gods’, the last seeing performers expose their bodies to banish storms).

London-based fashion designer Roksanda Ilinčić – who, with her eponymous label Roksanda has long forged connections with the art world – felt like a natural collaborator on the project. She also hails from Belgrade, Serbia, and her expressive clothing has often drawn on the traditional dress codes of the region (for S/S 2024, she looked towards the 4th-century Gračanica monastery and the rich decorative history of such Orthodox landmarks).

‘Marina has such a natural intuition when it comes to choosing the right people to work with. When the first talks about this project started in Manchester, she reached out and asked if I would like to join the team,’ Ilinčić tells Wallpaper*, having first met Abramović during her 2014 ‘512 Hours’ exhibition at London’s Serpentine Galleries.

‘We’re both from [the same place], and we share a deep connection to the same traditions and stories that shaped us. This piece was inspired by Balkan customs and myths, and it immediately felt close to my heart. I said yes immediately.’

Drawing on ‘old, pagan rituals and beliefs’, the costumes present a contemporary slant on folk costume – from a monastic taffeta gown (so long it pools on the floor around the performer) to white tasselled dresses evoking traditional Serbian folk costume. For Abramović herself, she created a simple bias-cut gown in black silk – a riff on the artist’s typically monochrome uniform. ‘All costumes have strong folk influences, but I wanted to present them as modern versions, seen through the lens of our times and – above all – Marina’s own incredible vision,’ says Ilinčić.

It is not the first time that the designer has created costumes for the stage: in 2022, she collaborated with the Royal Ballet to design the costumes for Valentino Zucchetti's Prima, part of the company’s A Diamond Celebration. ‘I like to maintain the same visual language that I have built through the years, but it’s also important to align with the artist’s vision and needs of performers,’ she says of working on these multidisciplinary projects. ‘Longevity of the costumes and ease of movement are also important to consider.’

Seeing the performance in Manchester, Ilinčić says, was ‘truly incredible’. ‘I am a huge admirer of Marina’s work and to be able to observe the process and contribute in some way is such a tremendous highlight for me and my team,’ she says.

Commissioned by Factory International, ‘Balkan Erotic Epic’ was premiered at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, before it goes on tour in 2026. Starting in Barcelona in January 2026, it will head to the piece’s co-commissioners, Gran Teatre del Liceu (24-30 January 2026), Berliner Festspiele, Park Avenue Armory and WestK.

Despite some notable absences – among them Molly Goddard, Chopova Lowena and JW Anderson – London Fashion Week A/W 2025 arrived in the city with a five-day schedule of presentations and runway shows, buoyed by the energy of its stalwart names, from Simone Rocha to Erdem. There was plenty of new talent, too: Fashion East showcased its latest class of emerging talent on Friday evening (21 February), while Talia Byre, Paolo Carzana and Jawara Alleyne each offered intriguing perspectives, and are ones to watch. Though with many younger designers choosing to show only once a year, September looks set to be a busier edition.

Elsewhere, Burberry proved the week’s biggest draw, with Daniel Lee choosing to show his latest collection for the British heritage brand on Monday evening (24 February 2025) with a blockbuster show at Tate Britain which saw him inspired by country house dramas and ‘weekend escapes’. Meanwhile, other brands are choosing new ways to present their collections: Marco Capaldo revealed his 1980s-inspired A/W 2025 collection for 16Arlington at an intimate dinner on Saturday evening at Almine Rech Gallery, while Stefan Cooke hosted a presentation at its east London studio (complete with an enormous cherry-studded cake). Roksanda, Kent & Curwen and Conner Ives rounded out the schedule.

Here, reported from London, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss picks the best of London Fashion Week A/W 2025.

London Fashion Week A/W 2025: the best of

Burberry

It was an impressive transformation: for Burberry’s latest outing, which closed London Fashion Week yesterday evening, the interior of London’s Tate Britain was entirely swathed in floor-to-ceiling drapes of cloth, their bucolic scenes evocative of tapestries found in British country houses (and perhaps some of the landscapes in the institution’s own hallowed halls). There was no doubt that this was a statement of intent from Burberry: here was Daniel Lee’s first real blockbuster show at the heritage house, from the set – conceived with Paris-based production agency Bureau Betak – to the starry front row, the names too numerous to mention (though the wall of camera flashes outside the venue were a hint to who was inside). There were stars on the runway, too, namely Richard E Grant, Lesley Manville, Jason Isaacs and Elizabeth McGovern, each loosely chosen by Lee to evoke the grand tradition of the British country house drama, from Gosford Park to Downton Abbey.

Lee said these were ‘potent touchstones’ of the collection, which imagined the faded romance of country piles and ‘weekend escapes’ from London, here figured in enveloping outerwear, which was undeniably the focus (new CEO Joshua Schulman has his attention on the pieces Burberry is known for, among them outerwear, scarves and umbrellas, which several models carried in their hands). There were faded tartan overcoats, worn with matching scarves, embroidered leather blousons and enormous shearling jackets, and of course plays on the trench (here, bulked up in heritage wools). And, though there was certainly an outdoor mood, flourishes of glamour – from velvet suiting to bell-sleeved 1970s-inspired dresses which gathered at the collar – were inspired by the wild, bohemian parties in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn and the eccentric dress codes of Britain’s upper classes (‘the way the whole thing was super twisted,’ he elucidated after the show). In this vein, there was even a knight in armour who sat front row – like a country house reveller playing dress-up – an addition which ensured Instagram ubiquity post-show.

It was a reminder, after what has largely been a quiet – even uneventful – London Fashion Week, that the city can still conjure the type of spectacle of its counterparts in Milan and Paris (the latter where several British designers have escaped in recent seasons). It was also a reminder of Lee’s own ability to rebrand: in fashion’s fast-moving landscape, it is easy to forget the way he transformed Bottega Veneta into a major fashion player nearly overnight. If Burberry has not been so instant – prompting nagging rumours of his departure – last night his vision began to take shape. ‘Things are definitely improving, and I think we’re all in a really positive place,’ he said after the show. ‘I love the brand, it's an incredible brand. It's really an honour to work for Burberry.’

READ: First look at Burberry’s A/W 2025 show set, which is inspired by the tapestry-draped interiors of country houses

Erdem

Erdem Moralıoğlu’s latest collection, presented in the atrium of the British Museum, was centred around a collaboration with the Scottish figurative painted Kaye Donachie. Moralıoğlu and Donachie had attended London’s Royal Academy of Arts at the same time, but a more recent connection – Moralıoğlu commissioning the artist to paint his late mother’s portrait – provided the impetus for this new collaborative venture. Inspired by the ‘poetic licence’ that Donachie took while painting somebody she had not known, what followed was a collection that was not only adorned with the artist’s work but also captured the ephemeral ‘veil between imagination and reality’ that defines her oeuvre. As such, the collection became one of free-flowing ideas and looks that appeared like apparitions, from garments overlaid with lustrous sheer layers of organza to sculpted-waist gowns and swathes of glimmering spike-shaped paillettes. The collection was presented with a quote from Virginia Woolf – ‘and as she dipped into the blue paint, she dipped too into the past there’ – which speaks not only to Donachie’s ability to conjure the past in her paintings but Moralıoğlu’s own impulse to continually reimagine historical silhouettes in vibrant and contemporary new ways.

Simone Rocha

There was something stripped back about Simone Rocha’s A/W 2025 collection, which despite its typical flourishes of romance (a delicate beaded eyebrow, pearlescent tortoise-shaped clutch bags, rabbit-shaped stoles, and, as ever, smatterings of pearls and crystals) had a feeling of directness, encapsulated in the primitive slices of faux fur and slashed pleats that became motifs throughout. In part, this came from memories of her time at school in Dublin, a period of sartorial experimentation albeit confined by uniforms and rules. Gathered gowns were pierced through the neckline with bike locks (a reference, Rocha said, to going ‘behind the bike sheds’ with a teenage crush), while rugby shirts, school scarves and ‘twisted twin sets’ were all references to school days, twisted and adorned in Rocha’s signature style. The show – which was also partly inspired by the fable of The Tortoise and the Hare, a nod to Rocha’s working at her own pace after 15 years in business – was presented on a cast of both models and actors, among them Minha Kim, Bel Powley, Andrea Riseborough and Fiona Shaw, who played the role of domineering headmistress in typically arresting fashion.

Roksanda

The voice of late sculptor Phyllida Barlow provided the soundtrack for Roksanda Ilinčić’s A/W 2025 show, held for the second time on one of the circular upper floors of Space House, a Richard Seifert-designed brutalist office building in London’s Holborn (as such, the show’s backdrop was an impressive 360-degree-view of the London skyline). ‘Space is malleable, it’s a material, it’s not just an empty vacuum,’ said Barlow on the recording, ‘And I suppose for me, sculpture, whatever sculpture is, it isn’t just the object; I think it’s a sentient physicality of something that replaces us with our own physicality.’ Ilinčić, who has long referenced artists – particularly women artists – in her work, said she drew inspiration from Barlow’s exploration of ‘fragility, impermanence, and physicality… creating work that feels in constant motion and transformation’. This was perhaps most evident in the collection’s closing looks, a series of gowns constructed from a bouncing collage of cut-out neoprene, their shapes inspired by the offcuts made when cutting pattern pieces from fabric (Barlow was known for her use of discarded objects). This exploration of tactility and experimentation ran through the collection, whether in the enormous paillettes (some of which became masks to conceal part of the face), delicate wisps of tulle, or the colourful, unruly painted strands of raffia that captured the dynamism of Barlow’s work. Among the more dramatic show pieces, elegant tuxedo-inspired tailoring, silk bias-cut dresses (in typically painterly hues) and cocooning knitwear will no doubt cater to her devoted clientele.

S.S. Daley

Steven Stokey-Daley’s A/W 2025 show came with something of a delay: originally slated to show in Paris during the city’s menswear week this past January, a last-minute switch saw him stick with his adopted home town, opening proceedings on Friday morning (Stokey-Daley is originally from Liverpool, but has lived and worked in London since graduating from Westminster University’s fashion course in 2020). The show, which was set to the soundtrack of Pet Shop Boys’ 1986 hit ‘West End Girls’, continued Stokey-Daley’s interrogation of Britishness and its dress codes, with several of the looks riffing on heritage outerwear, from the duffle coat to the donkey jacket (the latter came with a cocooning rounded shoulder and enormous front patch pockets). Other pieces continued to explore the uniforms of the upper classes – Stokey-Daley has long used the trappings of high society as a jumping-off point for his collections – seeing black-tie dressing warped with enormous elongated shirt collars, ruffled-front blouses, and feathers that emerged romantically from beneath blazers.

The show’s palette and prints, meanwhile, were drawn from the work of the Scottish Colourists – particularly Francis Cadell’s portrait Ioana Croft, which was replicated on a felted trench coat – an artistic group Stokey-Daley chose for their synonymy with ‘craft, textiles and forms’ (indeed, elements of beading and intricately printed organza spoke to a greater focus on make this season). Though it was the late British musician Marianne Faithfull who was the spiritual figurehead of the collection, with Stokey-Daley noting how her ‘willingness to experiment and explore different genres of music, poetry and spoken word helped pave the way for other artists to push boundaries’. One sweater was scrawled with ‘Stay Faithfull to Marianne’, while her 1979 song ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ – originally recorded by Dr Hook & the Medicine Show earlier in the 1970s – soundtracked the finale, providing an emotive final refrain.

Fashion East

There was a surprising mood of restraint at Fashion East this season, the Lulu Kennedy-led fashion incubator that has usually swayed more towards the unconventional and the outlandish. It was no bad thing: all three designers, Olly Shinder, Louther and Nuba offered clever proposals for real-world dressing nonetheless instilled with elements of subversion – like a pair of trousers from Nuba with pockets on the crotch, as if the model’s hand was stuffed into their underwear. Nuba is led by co-creative directors Cameron Williams and Jebi Labembika, and in their second outing at Fashion East they talked about conjuring the feeling of waking up from a dream, figured here in cocooning forms constructed from ribbed knitwear or soft-to-the-touch wools, which felt more gentle in approach than their debut last season (the designers called the pieces ‘cross-seasonal’ and ‘foundational’, an exploration of ‘functionality, environment and desire’). If occasionally the collection called for a little more refinement in cut and finish, Williams and Labembika are developing an intriguing vision: here, it was captured in an unexpected colour palette of slate grey, deep brown and cooler moments of cyan blue, the last inspired by the hospital scrubs one might see when waking up from a coma.

Louther, which is led by German designer Olympia Schiele, worked closely with the Polish visual artist Helena Minginowicz this season, whose own dreamlike works have been called ‘ambiguous’ and 'ephemeral’. With this collection, Schiele was particularly inspired by the idea of illusion in Minginowicz’s work, here evoked in an interplay of textures (trousers appeared flocked across their surface; various gauges and weights of knits were stitched together on a single cardigan; flourishes of faux fur came in dual-tone colours) and hazy, airbrush-effect motifs, a signature of Minginowicz’s oeuvre. Silhouettes, meanwhile, were largely generous and oversized, reflecting Schiele’s roots in street and skatewear (though here, that sense of volume called to mind labels like Lemaire, as one editor remarked). It made for a collection of clothes with real-world appeal, and was a definitive push forward from her debut last season. So too was Olly Shinder’s latest collection, his best as part of Fashion East so far (the collection was his fourth, and presumably final, with the incubator). Shinder is inspired by queer clubwear and corporate attire, often mashing them together; this season, he found a new sense of clarity, moving away from overt expressions of fetish towards a more subtle undercurrent of perversity. Consider a pair of trousers sliced across the back with a panel of sheer fabric – evoking a pair of women’s tan tights – or a terrific raincoat in black wipe-clean rubber.

London Fashion Week A/W 2024 heralded the 40th anniversary of the event that, despite earlier iterations, was inaugurated in the early 1980s by British PR maven Lynne Franks (Franks was said to be the inspiration behind Absolutely Fabulous’ Edina Monsoon). Since then, the week has held its unique balance of rising stars – perhaps best represented by fashion incubator Fashion East – and the city’s blockbuster names, from Vivienne Westwood to Burberry (and even featured an appearance from Queen Elizabeth II, who attended a Richard Quinn show in 2018). 

This latest edition continued the week’s legacy, beginning on Friday evening with a return to London Fashion Week from historic British house Dunhill after four years (it heralds the arrival of new creative director Simon Holloway). Elsewhere, the two biggest draws were JW Anderson – its eponymous designer Jonathan Anderson first rose to prominence at Fashion East in the 2010s – and Burberry, where Daniel Lee showed his third runway show for the historic British label in Victoria Park on Monday evening. Rounding out the schedule was a mix of the week’s stalwarts, including Molly Goddard, Simone Rocha, Roksanda, Erdem and Ahluwalia, alongside a raft of next-generation talent, from KNWLS, Aaron Esh and Conner Ives to the Central Saint Martins MA fashion show.

Here, reported from the shows, Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss rounds up the best of London Fashion Week A/W 2024.

The best of London Fashion Week A/W 2024

Burberry

It was a return to the great outdoors for Daniel Lee’s third runway collection for Burberry, shown yesterday evening in a vast tent erected in east London’s Victoria Park (on the floor were woodchips, while guests sat on enormous fleece cushions). It has been a thematic link that has run through his opening triptych, initially inspired by tents and outdoor-wear from the late-19th and early-20th centuries that he found in the British house’s archive. ‘Burberry’s heritage of the outdoors continues to inspire me,’ said the Yorkshire-born designer in a series of quotes issued after the show. ‘[This season], I wanted this collection to feel warm and protective.’

Soundtracked by a collage of Amy Winehouse clips and music – Lee said backstage that he was inspired by her tenacious desire to write about her life, in her own way – the collection doubled down on Burberry’s synonymy with outerwear, seeing a funnel-neck moleskin version of the trench coat, abbreviated parkas and puffers, and hefty shearlings appear throughout. The mood of textural richness was inspired, Lee said, by British and Irish wool and fabric (also used across long pleated skirts, zip-front trousers, and myriad enveloping, homespun knitwear). ‘[It’s] functional – these pieces are made for the outdoors,’ he said. The line-up of models, including Agyness Deyn, Lily Donaldson, Lily Cole, Naomi Campbell and Edie Campbell, recalled the 2010s, when Burberry was at cultural ubiquity. 

Backstage, after the show, Lee noted the trickiness of designing for a brand that is made to appeal to huge swathes of people: from royalty to football fans. With this collection – which was full of seductive propositions for real-world wintertime dressing – Lee made his strongest push yet. ‘I have to have a point of view,’ he said. ‘You can’t just make a simple trench coat forever.’

Aaron Esh

A brilliant winter collection from rising London-based designer Aaron Esh, inspired by the dress codes of his inner circle, closed out Sunday evening in an intimate show at east London’s Sarabande (Esh recently became part of the foundation, which was set up by Lee McQueen and offers studio spaces to emerging artists and designers). Building on his runway debut in September 2023, staged at Tate Modern against views of the London skyline, the designer once again noted the influence of his native city and its ‘rhizomatic’ streets. ‘It’s the clothes that I see when I’m at a house party; or the clothes someone would wear to do an off-licence run – big shades, ripped jeans, a blouse thrown over her shoulder,’ he told Wallpaper’s Hannah Tindle at the time.

It lends his work a kind of dishevelled sensuality, where slinky bias-cut dresses, smeared eyeliner, sunglasses, caps and hoodies meet intriguing tailoring, like a wide-lapelled tuxedo cut with a poker-straight hem (later, it evolved into an expansive overcoat), or the pinched hooded tailored jackets that the models grasped closed with their hands. Esh says that he hopes the ease of his clothing belies the craft and construction behind them, something that felt achieved here: his models looked as if wandering home from evenings out, or perhaps the morning after. Skinny jeans, meanwhile, heralded the return of a silhouette introduced by Hedi Slimane in the 2000s while at Dior Homme – the French designer’s singular, subculture-infused approach no doubt an influence on Esh’s growing oeuvre. 

JW Anderson

Nosy neighbours, M&S knickers, horse riding trophies – after the show, Jonathan Anderson laid out the nostalgic inspiration points for his A/W 2024 collection, presented this season at Marylebone’s Seymour Leisure Centre in a shift from The Roundhouse. ‘It was something twisted, in terms of the woman next door,’ he said, a mood elaborated in the press release as ‘a grotesque everydayness, in grotesque distortions and proportions’. So there were knit dresses with enormous stitches, trails of blown-up haberdashery adornments, layers of everyday ribbed underwear and vests, house slippers, and brassy grey curly wigs. In its strange banality it was surprisingly affronting, a further demonstration of Anderson’s ability to traverse the seductive and the ugly (the designer is perhaps only equalled by Miuccia Prada in his ability to strike this dichotomy so successfully season on season). 

Other pieces were designed to recall interiors, like a series of twisted dresses which evoked curtains and curtain ties, looping elegantly around the model’s bodies (their evolution into a version in pearl made for a convincing proposition for a contemporary wedding gown). Outerwear recalled British heritage styles, here blown up in size and slightly dishevelled, pulled up at the sleeve to reveal the lining beneath, while everyday staples like the striped sweater and sweatpant shorts appeared throughout. Anderson elaborated backstage that it was in part a consideration of Britain, a strange refraction of the country’s past – at once nostalgic and subverted, likening it to the slew of recent songs that have risen up the charts years after they have been released. 

‘Young people are discovering nostalgia,’ he said. ‘And then they glorify [things from the past], and it becomes a kind of future thinking in a didactic way. They’re like mixing things that my parents know, that we all know, and reconfiguring them. It makes nostalgia not such a scary thing.’

Simone Rocha

Simone Rocha described her A/W 2024 collection as the closing chapter of a triptych of works which began with last season’s ‘Dress Rehearsal’ – capturing the anticipation and fraughtness of the evening before a wedding – and continued with the designer’s haute couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier shown in Paris last month, which was titled ‘The Procession’ and looked towards the nuptials themselves. Presented in medieval church St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield, the conclusion was titled ‘The Wake’, with Rocha beginning the collection by looking towards the mourning attire of Queen Victoria after the death of her husband Prince Albert (famously, she would mourn the loss for over four decades of her life). It made for fertile ground for the Irish designer, whose collections have long had a swelling undercurrent of darkness despite the beauty of their execution. Here, pelts of faux fur sat on the shoulders of delicate, near-transparent tailoring, while corsets – adorned with shimmering crystal embellishment under the chest – seemed a continuation of her collaboration with Gaultier. Unexpected accessories came in the shape of soft-toy lambs carried in the models’ arms, a nod to the mythical animals which serve as church guardians, while mourning blacks were reimagined in tie-hem anoraks, worn with faux-fur stoles adorned with crystals. ‘This was the final piece of the triptych, because I was working on these collections at the same time,’ explained Rocha backstage. ‘I’ve been looking at a lot of preserved garments, a lot of archives, and I really wanted to take that and place it today.’

Molly Goddard

A vast mural by London Group artist Ivon Hitchens provided the colourful backdrop for Molly Goddard’s latest collection, staged at the main hall of Cecil Sharp House, the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in north London. The collection itself reflected the work’s freewheeling composition – Hitchens took three years to complete the 1954 mural, which depicts a mass of abstract figures dancing in a mythical woodland – with Goddard noting that this season she once again began the collection with an ‘experimental fitting’. In these, the designer takes vintage pieces, samples from her archive and toiles and begins to combine them as a starting point for the collection (she also noted inspiration from her eBay watch list, which with two young children is currently comprised of colourful baby and toddler wear). Here, it led her to a consideration of form – ‘shapes on top of shapes; garments combining – pulling in, pushing out, smushing’ – in part inspired by the haute couture silhouettes of Cristobal Balenciaga and Christian Dior, though relaxed with elasticated and tie fastenings for the everyday. Meanwhile, a continuing exploration of tulle – this season, Goddard described their construction as ‘blobs’, tightly ruffled shapes which provided dramatic silhouettes across skirts, shirts and dresses – met slouchy sweaters, cowboy jackets and polka-dot tops and bustiers in a collection of refreshing levity. 

Roksanda

Earlier this week, Zendaya wore a Roksanda look to Dennis Villenvenue’s Dune: Part Two London premiere: a plum-hued suit, jacket nipped in at the waist with exaggerated shoulders and loose-cut trousers, layered with a knee-length skirt. It turned out this was a sneak preview of the A/W 2024 collection presented yesterday, against the backdrop of the Tate Britain. (The suit opened the show with Law Roach, the actor’s stylist, watching on from the front row).

This season Ilinčić said she had been inspired by Le Corbusier, one of the Serbian-born designer’s ‘heroes’, and that she had recently spent time at the architect’s tiny holiday cabin, Cabanon de Le Corbusier. It was constructed in 1951 and located in Cap Martin, a coastal commune in the South of France. The interiors, and most notably the murals in the entrance hall, were subsequently referenced in the tapestries swathing around the body and trailing dramatically along the runway. Melton wool, a fabric ‘used in interiors and homes, places that provide refuge and comfort’, formed the opening suit and additional tailored pieces, where boucle, fil coupé jacquard, and a smattering of faux fur also lent themselves to the embrace of soft furnishings.

Roksanda is renowned for her considered use of colour, and of course, A/W 2024 was no different. The show notes reeled off a descriptive list of shades, reminiscent of the names that one might find on tins of expensive emulsion: Chartreuse-Verse, Canvas, Dark Flamant, Grey-Melange, Bleu-Cair, Pale-Lime, Light Hibiscus, Antique Rose, Peche-Clair. There were also sportier nods to windbreakers and wellingtons (footwear was produced in collaboration with Fit Flop), with the closing looks of the show taking the form of huge taffeta dresses that appeared almost tent-like, as though held up with a framework of poles. They conjured the idea of spending a windswept day along the coast, before returning to the warmth of a lavishly decorated home. Hannah Tindle

16Arlington

Writer and curator Charlie Fox’s 2019 exhibition My Head is a Haunted House, presented at Sadie Coles gallery, provided the starting point for Marco Capaldi’s A/W 2024 collection for 16Arlington. At the time, the group show was described by Fox as an attempt to recall ’the hallucinogenic memory’ of a childhood obsessed with werewolves, bats and monsters; here, Capaldi gave the monstrous a more elegant twist, seeing his sharp, streamlined vision for the brand enlivened with flourishes of strangeness, like swathes of shaggy faux fur or the clattering tinsel looks which closed the show. A pair of diaphanous white dresses, meanwhile, seemed to conjure Frankenstein’s bride, while shirts and sweaters tied around the neck in lieu of scarves suggested a mash-up of parts. ‘It’s not about Halloween – it’s about human nature,’ Capaldo said. ‘Hence the title of the show, I’m Not Sorry, It’s Human Nature, borrowed, of course, from Madonna. Those who go against conventions are often ostracised, but there’s so much strength and power and beauty in rejecting norms. These are the people I design for.’

Dunhill

For its first runway show since 2020 – and the first collection from newly installed creative director Simon Holloway – Dunhill chose the Duveen Wing of the National Portrait Gallery, a series of rooms inaugurated by King George V and Queen Mary in 1933. The historic venue hinted a return to classicism for the British brand (itself in its 130th year), a mood also captured in show’s the layout, which with its low-lit individual tables, gin martinis and dainty plates of cucumber and caviar sandwiches nodded towards traditional salon-style fashion presentations of the early 20th century.  

’This collection celebrates our origins and subsequent evolution into a unique British luxury house,’ explained Holloway of the A/W 2024 collection, which sought to capture Dunhill’s rich tailoring heritage and tradition of dressing figures from stage and screen (earlier in the week, the brand hosted a star-studded pre-BAFTA party, a hint towards this new direction). So the collection itself ran the gamut of what Holloway called the ‘finer things in life’ – whether motor racing (recalled in the suede field jacket worn by model Kit Butler, or the leather driving gloves throughout), jaunts to the great outdoors (gabardine chinos, blazers in heritage checks and cord, aran-stitch cashmere sweaters) or a swathe of evening wear, including an elegant ivory riff on the tuxedo with matching bowtie and overcoat (worn here with a sneaker).

‘[These are the things] we have always done best,’ concluded Holloway of the collection, which felt like something of a palette cleanser for his tenure ahead. ‘I hope we have re-captured that spirit, one that is at once refined and international,’

Fashion East

There was an interesting synchronicity to this season’s Fashion East designers Olly Shinder and Johanna Parv – the latter in her third and final season at the talent incubator – who both provided their own distinct riffs on the nine-to-five wardrobe. Shinder, who last season presented a debut collection of pieces inspired by the sporty, sleazy nightlife uniforms of Berlin and London, where the designer splits his time. Soundtracked once again by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, here Shinder turned his attention towards the corporate uniform, which was ‘queered... displaced, subverted and refined’. So there was a take on ’middle managerial’ shirting, which appeared to have been grasped at the collar and sliced down the back, while other pieces continued Shinder’s more familiar exploration of workwear, with clean-lined functional sets with PVC at the sleeves and over the trousers, as if models were about to deal with hazardous materials (indeed, Shinder likened his studio this season to a lab). Completing the lineup were pieces primed for the dance floor: slick, semi-shirted latex bodysuits, or abbreviated mini shorts in black and silver. Judging by buzz, he already has an audience for these clothes.

Parv, meanwhile, is a designer who looks towards the functionality of sportswear through toggle and adjustable fastenings, and technical fabrics, attempting to replicate them across the full gamut of a woman’s wardrobe. This season, a polished collection continued this approach with what she said was inspired by the ‘topography of the city’, and the demands of urban life. The mood was darker, and more sensual than previously – the skirt suit was sliced open at the front and shoulders – while zip-up mini dresses were featherweight in their fabrication. As ever, a series of clever accessories accompanied in the form of leather bumbags and handbags with an adjustable nylon strap, evocative of those found on a backpack. It will be interesting to see what Parv does next.

Amsterdam’s Pulitzer hotel is one of the Dutch city’s most unique properties – straddling two canals and spanning the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht canals, the hotel comprises 25 historic houses, each built between Amsterdam’s golden 17th and 18th centuries and with a unique history and original purpose (the room I stayed in was housed in a former canalside brewery on the Prinsengracht side). First founded by Peter Pulitzer – grandson of newspaper titan Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the famed publishing prize – who bought the then-dilapidated collection of houses in the 1970s, the space was redesigned in 2016 by Jacu Strauss, creative director of the Lore Group which now owns the hotel.

That design, which relies on liberated use of colour, as well as playful nods to the city’s history – the reception desk, for example, is entirely adorned with blue-and-white Delft tiles – largely centres around a courtyard from which one can view the amalgam of architectural styles that make up the Pulitzer. This past November weekend, that courtyard was transformed with a vast new centrepiece – a pink tulle-covered Christmas tree designed by Roksanda, the eponymous London-based brand of designer Roksanda Ilinčić, known for its sculptural, colour-soaked designs which often find inspiration from contemporary artists and creative movements.

Roksanda x Pulitzer Amsterdam Christmas tree

Standing 10m high, the unique pink Christmas tree heralds the arrival of the festive season – one for which Amsterdam is particularly known, the city transformed each December with glimmering Christmas lights and a slew of markets, ice rinks, and seasonal gatherings (officially beginning with Sinterklaas, where on the eve of 5 December, children leave boots at the fireplace to be filled with gifts). Pulitzer says that the Christmas tree offers ‘seasonal cheer and joy to our [two brands’] merging communities’, which span Amsterdam, London and Serbia (where Ilinčić is originally from), as well as the slew of other countries that make up the brands’ respective teams, friends, and collaborators.

‘It started really spontaneously,’ explains Ilinčić of how the project began. ‘They reached out to me, and knowing how special the Pulitzer is, its team’s attention to detail, and the way they celebrate so many different artists, that was the beginning of it all. It was built on a mutual respect for art and design.’

The textile-heavy design – the tree is entirely adorned with drapes of varying shades of pink tulle – reflects Ilinčić’s own collections, which alongside colour and print feature an array of richly crafted materials. Her S/S 2024 show (among our London Fashion Week S/S 2024 highlights), for example, contrasted fluid forms in textures of sand-washed silk satin, naia crepe, georgette and fil coupé with the brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Centre. Here, the draped pieces of fabric, each painstakingly cut and crafted by the Roksanda team in London, draw inspiration from the Norwegian textile artist Hanne Friis. Friis, who makes use of materials like silk stockings, latex gloves, and discarded textiles, creates intricately ruched and woven textiles which she hopes evoke the ‘corporeal’ intricacies of the human body and the natural world.

‘For one of my previous collections, I used this very particular bright pink tulle,’ says Ilinčić of the tree’s distinct palette. ‘I wanted to incorporate my design language – like my signature colour-blocking – in a conceptual way, a way that isn’t usually seen on a Christmas tree.’ On her own tree at home – which she creates with her daughter – she enjoys experimenting with colour and form (one year, an artist friend created hand-blown glass adornments), though you will always find baubles that Ilinčić has collected throughout her life. ‘They always end up there because they have an emotional value.’

To mark the occasion, Ilinčić invited a number of people to a celebratory dinner, where guests – including the photographer Paul Kooiker, Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas, founder of Young/The Agency Ashlee Janelle Danso, artist Lissa Brandon, and Dj Zoë Janice, among others – dined in one of the hotel’s historic chandelier-lit dining rooms. The evocative dishes, in part inspired by the colours and textures of Ilinčić’s work included scallop crudo (topped with a shimmer of gold leaf and caviar), burrata, beetroot and fig, sole with sweet and sour pumpkin and radish vinaigrette, and a perfectly pink macaron for dessert in flavours of hibiscus, rose and raspberry. Together, it was the perfect primer – and an artful inspiration point – for a month of celebratory dinners ahead.

‘Christmas is a time to connect people, whether you celebrate it or not,’ says Ilinčić of how to host such a gathering. ’It’s a time to celebrate all the good things about life. To me, the decoration of the table is as important as the tree – the flowers, the setting, it lifts the whole event to something magical. And then there’s the conversation, the food, that follows. And the clothes, of course!’ 

pulitzeramsterdam.com
roksanda.com

‘An encounter between two very different identities to create a new one, at once unexpected and authentic,’ described London-based label Roksanda of its collaboration with Fila, which was first shown as part of its A/W 2022 presentation at London Fashion Week last February. Backdropped by colourful geometric sculptures by Irish artist Eva Rothschild, the various collaborative pieces saw Roksanda Ilinčić – the label’s namesake founder and creative director – combine her distinctive eye for silhouette and cut with the archetypal logos and technical fabrics long synonymous with the sportswear brand. 

Roksanda x Fila: ‘unexpected and authentic’

The result was a series of bold voluminous forms, from duvet-like jackets and asymmetric quilted ponchos which enveloped the body, to layered looks which appeared as if formed from deconstructed technical anoraks and jackets (Ilinčić previously noted she hopes her designs ‘provide a sense of shelter and refuge to their wearer’). A typically vivid palette – Ilinčić is also known for an expansive use of colour, which aligns with her longtime links with the contemporary art world – illuminated the pieces in fluorescent shades of pink and orange, reminiscent of vintage sportswear.

‘Growing up in Serbia, I cherish personal memories of how much we all loved Fila pieces coming from Italy,’ she said of the satisfyingly offbeat union at the time. ‘This collection allowed me to give a new point of view on such a beloved heritage: one that merges my shapes and colours with a sense of performance and the outdoors. The soft, enveloping message is perfectly timely.’

Model: Emily Viviane at Elite Models London. Casting: Svea Casting. Hair: Maarit Niemela at Bryant Artists using Charlotte Mensah. Make-up: Rebecca Davenport using Danessa Myricks. Manicure: Sasha Goddard at Saint Luke Artists using Dior Manicure Collection and Miss Dior hand cream. Photography assistant: Callum Su. Fashion assistant: Kris Bergfeldt.

The winners of the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2023 are revealed in the February 2023 issue, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Roksanda and Eva Rothschild’s shared focus on a bold use of colour and striking geometrical silhouettes is encapsulated in original artworks for the designer’s A/W 2022 show at London Fashion Week. Here, they reveal the inspiration behind the installations.

Wallpaper*: How does Eva's work here complement the vision you have for this collection?

Roksanda Ilinčić: Eva’s work is always challenging preconceived notions we may have, whether on construction or geometry or colour, it’s all about subverting the eye. For this collection I wanted to explore the duality and contradictions within us of being grounded in our new reality but still wanting to dream. I think that underlying dichotomy is really mirrored and reflected back in Eva’s works.

W*: What narrative is created between the collection and artworks?

RI: I took inspiration from Eva’s works to form the basis of my exaggerated gowns of padded amorphous and unusual patchworking. I used colour-blocking, married together in silk taffetas, silk satins, cottons and sand-washed silks to bring new volume and tactility and defying pre-conceived notions of construction.

W*: What parallels can you draw between Eva's emphasis on bold geometric outlines and an eclectic range of materials?

RI: Both Eva and I explore construction in our own ways but at the same time we have quite a similar approach to our ethos. I gravitate towards her boldness and use of colour and geometry as something I recognise in my own work.

W*: Why did you want to work with Eva on this design?

RI: Eva and I have been friends for a long time and are always in dialogue with each other, sharing ideas and inspirations. There is a synchronicity in our work, and a mutual appreciation. I liked the idea in these times of creating new conversations with old friends.

W*: Hi Eva, how has Roksanda's collection inspired this artwork?

Eva Rothschild: I have followed Roksanda’s work for many years and her use of colour and her sculptural way with fabric forms and the body has always had a real resonance with my own interests. The works I am presenting here pre-exist this current collection, but were originally created to be used with dancers, so placing them in the active context of Roksanda’s show is really exciting for me.

W*: What inspired you here?

ER: The forms are created to make an active environment for the body to negotiate. The splitting of colours across the different plains of the frames creates a visual confusion about the structure of the pieces. I am always interested in making sculpture that engages both the body and the eye in an active form of looking that makes us aware of the relationship between the object and ourselves.

W*: Your pieces play with subversive geometric silhouettes - how have you built on that with these strong shapes?

ER: Geometry is subversive in itself, as it contains both the clearly known reliable forms of architecture and modernism, and the more arcane geometric confusions of mandalas, pyramids and labyrinths. In using geometric form within a sculptural practice it is always interesting to combine these two elements, and that is what I have been working with here.

W*: What role does colour play in these works?

ER: Colour defines different plains within the structure of the pieces. The structural elements have a job to do, they have to get the object to actually stand up. The colour is not bound by this and it can jump across the structures creating a visual impression that may even be at odds with what we know is structurally necessary. It enhances and re-defines prosaic structure. And of course colour adds beauty, excitement and visual delight.

It’s been eighteen months since the London fashion crowd stomped the streets in idiosyncratic, head-turning looks, flitting between shows in cultural landmarks across the city, and celebrating the British capital’s spirit of creativity and community. A lot has changed since then. Brands have shuttered, boutiques have closed and our means of communication have shifted. The London Fashion Week schedule has become gender free.

But a warm optimism and anticipation filled the seats at S/S 2022’s shows and presentations, as viewers celebrated the joy of seeing a new clothing collection in real life: the vibrancy of a colour, the texture of a fabric, the drape of a silhouette, by burgeoning brands and behemoths, from 2021 LVMH Prize Winner Nensi Dojaka to Erdem, SS Daley to Roksanda. Here’s eight things to know about the British capital’s return to fashion form and London Fashion Week S/S 2022.

London Fashion Week S/S 2022: all you need to knowLFW : ‘F’ is for friendship

A sense of community is integral to London's fashion scene, a unity brought into focus by talent incubator Fashion East, which celebrated its 20th anniversary at London’s The Standard Hotel. For S/S 2022 Goomheo, Maximilian, HRH, Jawara Alleyne and Chet Lo made up the burgeoning talent roster, Asian-American designer Lo making his debut with a series of futuristic 3D-knit designs, inspired by the vibrance of holiday. Elsewhere, Simone Rocha celebrated her brand's tenth birthday with a party with long-time collaborator Dover Street Market. A stained glass church installation housed a special celebratory collection, featuring archive pieces, and upcycled tableclothes crafted in collaboration with Luncheon magazine.

Matchesfashion celebrated its Innovators initative, a conversational project that sees its latest roster of emerging talent, including Harris Reed, Chopova Lowena and Grace Wales Bonner speak to their creative heroes. At a party at the retailer's majestic Carlos Place townhouse, guests snacked on cute mini pizzas housed in boxes printed with its signature marbled motif. 

Richard Malone – fresh from a turn as gallery curator – marked his collaboration with Mulberry with a show at the Victoria & Albert Musuem. Models strode against a backdrop of breathtaking Renaissance artworks sporting sculptural spliced designs, from cut-out ruched dresses to patchwork leather coats, made using upcycled Mulberry fabrics. They also carried the designer’s accessory interpretations for Mulberry Editions – bold, graphic takes on the brand's ‘Bayswater’ and ‘Darley’ bags. 

Another way to absord the community-focused energy at London Fashion Week? The whoops and cheers from the audience as Nensi Dojaka took a bow on the runway at her S/S 2022 finale, or the hug Maximilian Davis’ mother gave him post-show, in view of the smiling guests.

The city still lives in splendour

After long months of lockdown and social and physical restriction, the British capital is slowly but surely getting its buzz back. Nothing exemplified this more than the diverse locations in which London's brands chose to stage their shows. In celebration of his eponymous label's 15-year anniversary, Erdem hosted an intimate runway show outdoors amongst the classical colonnades of the British Museum, framed by a rainbow that appeared at the show's finale.

Rejina Pyo hot-footed across east London, staging her show at the Zaha Hadid-designed London Aquatics Centre in Stratford, which hosted events during the 2012 Olympics. Simone Rocha showcased her collection at the medieval church St Bartholomew the Great. Roksanda returned to her regular Serpentine Galleries location. And Kiko Kostadinov looked to the rooftop of the Selgas Cano-designed workspace Second Home.

More gritty, Knwls took guests to a dimly lit underground car park behind Oxford Street, while Edward Crutchley shone colourful lasers and smoke across the unfinished concrete interior of Collins’ Music Hall. Saul Nash brought memories of going to school in Hackney to his idiosyncratically performance-focused runway show, with male models sporting hybrid tracksuits and Nikes and getting changed in front of the audience at bus stops.

Skimpy is chic

Let's hear it for flaunting the female form. Following on from the glamour and body-sporting chic at New York Fashion Week S/S 2022, a host of brands embraced unabashed body-con silhouettes. Supriya Lele brought a confident, grown-up mood to her colourful, 1990s-centric shapes, with cut-out halterneck dresses in soft leather, daring bodysuits paired with wrap skirts and cropped bomber jackets. Inspired by archetypal silhouettes, she reinterpreted a man's oversized vest as a sheer sequined net dress, and reimagined a pair of capri pants in sheer mesh that tied at the navel. ‘The collection is about evolution and pushing the brand forward,’ Lele told Wallpaper*. ‘It's about reaffirming what we are good at.’

Nensi Dojaka, who scooped this year’s LVMH Prize, evolved her signature lingerie-centric LBDs, updating her transparent strappy pieces with pinks and browns and adding knitwear elements and tailoring, such as tuxedo trousers and oversized blazers. Elsewhere, Knwls brought heavy-metal biker-girl glam to its sexy skin-tight silhouettes, with bleached denim, cracked leather, sand-splashed hues and cowboy hats.

Menswear is in the mix

S/S 2022 saw the men's and women's catwalk schedule physically merge. Cue Saul Nash's school-inspired sportswear take, complete with Nikes, Kickers and tracksuits printed with the Hackey-born designer’s TFL travel pass; plus Molly Goddard's menswear evolution, which saw silhouettes inspired by children's clothes, and models sporting heart-motif intarsia knits, thigh-revealing shorts and ballet pumps. Upcycling wunderkind SS Daley's debut catwalk show featured whimsical, upcycled silhouettes, from paisley suits to rugby shirts, voluminous trousers to dressing gowns, while Stefan Cooke looked to classic wardrobe pieces, like tracksuit bottoms, polo shirts, vests and bomber jackets, reintrepreting them with trompe l’oeil effects, light-hearted dancing-women motifs, cable-knit appliqué and chainmail.

Set your sights on far horizons

Unsurprisingly, a host of designers set their sights on escapist scenes. At Fashion East, Maximilian looked with a nostalgic nod to the sun-soaked colours and vibrancy of life on the islands of the Caribbean Sea, inspired by memories of family visits to Trinidad, presenting ocean tones, reds inspired by the island’s scarlet ibis bird, and outfits riffing on carnival attendees.

Chet Lo's innovative knitwear also looked to sun-drenched sojourns, the tones of tropical cocktails and the outlines of pool inflatables.

Laura and Deanna Fanning looked to the streets around north London that they walked during lockdown for Kiko Kostadinov's A/W 2021 collection; but for S/S 2022 they looked to the sunny shores of their native Australia, where they have not returned since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Looking to beach literature by Kathy Lett and Tim Winton, the brand's collection referenced surf, salt-baked tones from sand to oceanic blues, the undulating shapes of waves, and the relaxed ease of beach living. Wrap skirts were embellished with shells, blouses had flowing handkerchief shapes, and ribbed knits were imagined as upside down cardigans. ‘For many Australians, the coast is such an ordinary aspect of growing up that can be a fetishised and commercialised norm. In saying that, there are so many beautiful parts of the coast that really give you a sense of perspective, relief and a moment to reflect in its calmness and sparsity. Not being able to return home, we really felt a sense of longing for the calmness and balance that coastal trips and moments provide for us,’ the sisters told Wallpaper*.

The show must (not) go on

Not all brands were back on the official schedule, with notable exceptions from September's London Fashion Week being Burberry, Christopher Kane and Chalayan. Margaret Howell skipped a physical show in favour of a film and a small collection of accompanying appointments – the perfect way for the brand to allow editors to touch the tactile, time-honed fabrications and attention to cut and comfort that the label spends hours deliberating over. Chalky, paint-like textures were central to the men's and women's collection, which featured pastel-hued simple striped dresses, Mackintosh-designed boxy cagoules, casual unlined tailoring and schoolish-inspired styling. ‘Each season, there's a lot of tweaks that go on,' Howell told Wallpaper* of silhouettes that nodded to heritage styles in the brand's extensive archive.

Prince of partywear Halpern also eschewed a physical show, in favour of a digital film created in collaboration with The Royal Ballet. At the Royal Opera House, dancers twirled in fluid silk gowns and dresses drenched in colourful fringing. JW Anderson also skipped an IRL show, debuting instead a collection film and in-store activations at the brand’s 6a-designed Soho boutique. 

Christopher Kane and Burberry chose to hold their runway shows through livestream in October, parallel to Paris Fashion Week. The former, presented an offering that meditated between minimalism and more tongue in cheek silhouettes, featuring dresses in fluid metallic pleats or with architectural volumes, satin coats with 3D folds, chainmail tops and jumpers and shirts embellished with the figurative characters that Kane dreamt up during lockdown.

The world is a stage (and a swimming pool)

Theatricality was high on the agenda for a host of immersive, performance-focused shows. At London Aquatics Centre in Stratford, Rejina Pyo showed a colourful print-splashed collection, featuring Canadian tuxedos, puritan-collar dresses, ruched skirts and oversized tailoring. At the show’s finale, models ascended the space's diving boards and were joined by members of the GB diving team, who wore bold swimming costumes and performed breathtaking dives into the swimming pool below.

Roksanda returned to her favourite Serpentine Pavilion venue – designed for 2021 by South African architecture practice Counterspace, using Portuguese cork and bricks made of construction waste – with a show-cum-performance, created in collaboration with choreographer Holly Blakey. Dancers ascended seating, crawled across the floor and clambered onto each others shoulders in a performance inspired by layered human emotion and tension, wearing the designer's colourful, motion-fuelled pieces, like bell sleeve gowns, fringed dresses and slouchy suiting.

Menswear designer Steven Stokey-Daley – whose star began to ascend after his whimsical, upcycled designs were sported by Harry Styles – enlisted members of the National Youth Theatre for his brand SS Daley’s debut catwalk show, with a performance that riffed on notions of masculinity, stereotypes of public and private school, power structure and class. The designer developed these fascinations when studying at the University of Westminster, which has a campus overlooking Harrow School's rubgy fields. Meanwhile, Charles Jeffrey returned to dramatic form, staging ‘Portal' at the gritty Metalworks in Islington, with models striding amongst laser beams and sporting century-spanning garments, headpieces ablaze with burning candles.

Mum’s the word

Simone Rocha recently gave birth to her second daughter, and for S/S 2022 she had motherhood on her mind. The designer referenced  ‘Sleep walking, mothering',  ‘Communion dress’, ‘Baby teeth & lack of sleep' in her collection notes, which featured voluminous cotton nightgowns edged with brocade and broderie anglaise, girlish ballet shoes, ethereal layered petticoats, ribbon detail cardigans and beaded crowns. Spring spoke of vulnerability and strength.

Elsewhere, Molly Goddard – who is on maternity leave after giving birth to her first son – subtly alluded to her new role as a mother, looking at the baby and kids’ clothes she has collected over time, and blowing up silhouettes such as smock dresses to grown-up proportions.

After months of shuffling about in our slouchiest separates, lazing in loungewear and tootling in track pants, we’re eyeing up ensembles with a little more oomph. Feathered eveningwear was a focus on the S/S 2021 catwalks, as labels shirked the dressed down sartorial slump of 2020 in favour of optimistic and more attention-seeking style. Bring on the sequins and shimmer.

Embrace attention-seeking style in a feathered dress

Brands including Saint Laurent, Roksanda, Numberoventuro and Salvatore Ferragamo, also adorned evening looks with delicate plumes, whether they swathed skirts and slip dresses or frothed from a skinny sleeve. This fine feathered evening wear recalled the froufrou of a Twenties flapper girl and the sweep of a 1960s starlet.

Numberoventuro's Alessandro Dell'Acqua created Jazz Age-style embellishments by pairing plumed skirts with pared-back chunky knitwear and men's shirts, while Saint Laurent's Anthony Vaccarrello found particular inspiration in the latter era, drawing on archival pieces which felt both easy and extravagant. 

Spring’s plumed looks bring a lighter-than-air uplift to dressing, but they also provide required comfort too. Pristine white pieces evoke the solace of freshly laundered layers, while feathers swathe the body and recall the soft, enfolding fabrics we relied on during lockdown. Roman label Fendi even paired a plumed pencil skirt with a padded coat that resembled an enveloping duvet, for the ultimate in down and out-out dressing. Pack a punch with these protective dressing options, for when we can finally flock together.

Back in February, the blustery winds of Storm Denis were the main, outfit-ousting concern for attendees of London Fashion Week. As street style stars, paparazzi and journalists bundled from landmark locations in Bloomsbury and Bank, cooing at the A/W 2020 collections, the thread of Covid-19 had barely entered their brains. Now, the A/W 2020 shows – their twinkling venues packed with guests, international press and glamorous stars – seem part of a parallel universe.

In the seven months that have passed, the luxury landscape has changed beyond recognition. In July the British Fashion Council – based on statistics from Oxford Economics – warned the UK government up to 350,000 jobs could be lost in the wake of Covid-19, and that sales this year could fall from £118bn to £88bn. British brands have announced closures – Henry Holland went into administration in April, and Pringle of Scotland has been paused indefinitely.

But this tumultuous period has also been one of creative hope and innovation. In April, designers Holly Fulton, Phoebe English and Bethany Williams launched the Emergency Designer Network, a volunteer led enterprise created to support the NHS with PPE. Designers including Simone Rocha, Emilia Wickstead and Roland Mouret joined the initiative, and in July, 100,000 surgical sets had been distributed to 28 individual hospitals. Hosts of other British brands also supported the Covid-19 crisis, with Burberry fast-tracking the delivery of over 100,000 surgical masks to the NHS and mobilising its trench coat factory in Castleford, Yorkshire, to create non-surgical gowns and masks for hospital patients. The BFC also established an emergency Fashion Fund, an initiative granting financial support to 37 British brands, including Roksanda, Richard Quinn and Rejina Pyo, totalling over £1,000,000.

Amongst the uncertainty came the question of how to stage fashion week. In July, men’s and couture fashion week moved online, and as part of this from-home era, the BFC announced London Fashion Week was to move to an innovative gender-neutral digital platform. In the midst of new Covid-19 restrictions in England, limiting gatherings and social events, S/S 2021 launched with 50 digital-only activations,  21 physical and digital, and a sprinkling of small, socially-distanced physical-only events. These activations included pre-recorded films, staged in locations like Epping Forest and a 19th century church in Yorkshire, intimate salon shows and collection appointments at venues including Hauser & Wirth and the Victoria Miro museum.

No stranger to spectacle, even in the era of social distancing, Burberry kicked off the proceedings with an otherworldly live show, streamed for the first time on Twitch, the live streaming service beloved of gamers worldwide. Chief creative officer Riccardo Tisci teamed up with German visual artist Anne Imhof, famous for ‘Faust’, her eerie 2017 performance piece inside the Venice Biennale’s German Pavillion, which featured patrolling snarling Dobermans. For Burberry, Imhof devised an industrial circular stage setting in the midst of the British countryside, a symbol to Tisci of renewal. Models walked – accosted by The Matrix-centric minders, clad in suits and sunglasses – and they sported vibrant tailoring, logo-splashed sportswear, sparkling party dresses and deconstructed trench coats. Tisci spoke of devising a modern fairy tale, centred on a love story blooming between a mermaid and a shark. So models sported sou'westers, fisherman's coats and shirts with scribbled shark prints. The nautical theme nodded to the oceanic history of the house. It’s famed for inventing waterproof gabardine, worn by the Navy and Arctic explorers in the early 20th century.

Unsurprisingly S/S 2021 had a strong socio-political pull. Michael Halpern – who spent spring making PPE at Royal Brompton Hospital – celebrated the heroines of the front line in a heart-warming film, dressing night tube drivers, nurses, bus station managers and gynecologists in his extravagant ballroom-worthy designs, like plumed puff ball dresses, tartan boucle gowns and polka dot pyjamas. 

Socially-minded Bethany Williams has been collaborating with The Magpie Project since 2019. The Newham-based charity works with children and mothers who are homeless or at risk of homelessness – 80 per cent of who have no access to public funds (NRPF). An estimated 100,000 children in the UK live in poverty because their parents immigration status denies them access to the UK’s welfare system. For S/S 2021's ‘All Our Children’, Williams included the families which are part of The Magpie Project, in a film celebrating the force of familial ties, with mothers and children sporting colourful hand-painted pieces created in collaboration with illustrator and artist Melissa Kitty. Williams worked with deadstock, organic and recycled materials, and the collection also features patchwork sportswear spliced from Adidas Originals swatches, corsets created in collaboration with Welsh designer Rosie Evans and lunch boxes and reading wallets woven out of book waste, developed with Tottenham-based Stevan Saville.

Out of crisis often comes optimism, and for Molly Goddard positivity came in collection pouring over with prismatic colours. ‘When we first came out of lockdown and decided to do a show, I wanted to do something really pared back,’ she explained. ‘But as we returned slowly to the studio after months of working as a team over Zoom, I realised how dark and depressing the last few months had been and more and more colour crept into the collection.’ For S/S 2021, Goddard proposed ruffled gingham skirts, frilled tulle crop tops, poufing parkas, and punky striped vests in tones of sea foam, scarlet and fuchsia. These colours nodded to papier-mâché Claes Oldenburg sculptures, found in the art collection of Guiseppe and Giovanna Panza. Goddard also unveiled a collaboration with Ugg, on a series of stompy flatform slippers and fluffy flats.

Emerging British-Asian designer Supriya Lele also saw optimism in embellishment. When she returned to her South London studio post-lockdown, she noted that each day her all-female team were adding glamour to their once dressed-down outfits. For the first time she added sequin to her fabric roster of light jersey and chiffon, creating gauzy wraparound pieces like mini dresses, camisoles and sarong skirts in vibrant tones, which nodded to the hues of her Indian heritage. ‘I thought I’d inject a bit of sparkle into what I’m doing. I’m feeling a bit more optimistic in a way,’ she explained. The collection also nodded to Lele’s adolescence spent listening to heavy metal, featuring sequin skirts spray-painted punkishly with an Indian motif and sheer creased crop tops resembling faded band tees. Her azure blue, turquoise and magenta colour palette was inflected with moodier dark chocolate and slime green

For brands, so long bolstered to traditional modes of presentation, S/S 2021 also offered up a chance to experiment. Christopher Kane spent lockdown creating acrylic glitter glue images of women – humorously labelled his "brats" – and he presented his colourful spring offering in his Mount Street store alongside these escapist artworks. ‘Painting during lock down replaced the void of making collections,’ he explained. ‘It became a way to escape my own mind - no rules, deadlines, or pressures.’ Victoria Beckham too took time to reassess. ‘Limitations can be liberating,’ the designer explained in the introduction to her S/S 2021 film. Her streamlined collection featured easy fluid dresses with seductive cut outs, flared tailoring and denim. Beckham returned to the intimate salon-show format of her early presentations, showcasing her spring looks at the Victoria Miro museum.

In a year, when lockdown may one be our sole collective recollection, designers were also fascinated by the concept of memory. At Preen, designers and partners Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton decamped to their home in Suffolk during lockdown. There they discovered the belongings of its former resident, an American art critic. These trinkets informed a collection which Preen worked on with their daughters - one inspired by fragments of memory, featuring floral patchwork dresses and panelled trench coats, created from deadstock fabrics, elements of the brand's own history. Richard Malone was also fascinated by the concept of time, when considering how to design for ‘real life’ when it’s been altered irrevocably. During lockdown, he read I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat, both works which deal with a contortion and curvature of time. His resulting collection offered up ‘rigorous comfort’ with voluminous draped dresses and high-shouldered tailoring, imagined in silk-like wool crêpe and velvet which Malone hand-washed in his own bath.

Having spent most of the year indoors (and possibly next year too), practical wardrobe solutions were also on the S/S 2021 agenda. For Roksanda Illincic who staged her presentation inside the Gasholders penthouse she designed last year – a space populated with soft tones and pieces by Charlotte Perriand and Lina Bo Bardi – recycled cashmere tracksuits bought a new ease to her aesthetic. Her set-up reflected the reality we’ve all faced since spring, featuring mis-en-scenes of lockdown life, like mothers and daughters lying in bed, and women washing up. Church’s also offered practical footwear solutions. The Northampton-based label, which usually presents its latest designs at Milan Fashion Week, debuted Dear Thomas, a film inspired by The Talented Mr Ripley, featuring modern twists on classic silhouettes, like sandals with tank-tread soles and a heeled version of its Dee Dee slide.

Simone Rocha also spoke of ‘looking for comfort and security in the extreme’. Her collections often denote feminine forms of protection, with models swathed in gauzy organza, layered silhouettes and resplendent ruffled embellishments. At her stripped back presentation at Hauser & Wirth, models strode within the stark gallery space, sporting voluminous designs that riffed on historical courtly elegance, like floor-pooling dresses in bias cut silk, taffeta knot detail gowns and metallic jacquard coats with emphatic waistlines. Beaded bralettes which tied with ribbon were designed to anchor the escapist silhouettes, and accessories placed emphasis on ergonomic design, like ballet shoes with rubber platform heels and net shoppers strung from sparkling beads.

For the last half decade, Margaret Howell has designed according to the tenets of timeless design. She spent lockdown at her home near the Suffolk coastline, gaining a renewed interest in sketching. The main design difference she noted was the inability to try on each piece in her S/S 2021 collection, which features oversized shapes like slouchy blazers, utilitarian pleated trousers and drop waist dresses in Swiss cottons and silks. Howell often revisits pieces in her archives – which look as contemporary today as they did when they were debuted – and blew up a polka dot print for spring. ‘My work has always been about trying to remain true to myself; it is a consistent style with subtle changes,’ she told Wallpaper* back in March. Howell's approach epitomises the importance of clothing that can withstand unprecedented lifestyle changes, balancing utility and luxury and resonating with shoppers whatever the season. 

‘I love collaborating with and creating partnerships with other women,’ says Roksanda Ilinčić of the female-focused celebratory space she creates within her eponymous brand. Ilinčić first nodded to the bold spatial creations of Rana Begum in her pre-fall 2019 collection, after discovering the artist's sculptural pieces at Frieze London. Colour and light are fundamental to both of the women’s practises – prismatic aesthetics stemming from childhoods in Serbia and Bangladesh respectively. For A/W 2020, this resulted in a collaborative London Fashion Week runway installation inside the majestic courtyard of the Durbar Court of The Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  

Floating above the catwalk like a modernist cloud, Begum’s spray-painted netting installation was inspired by fishermen on flooded rice fields in Bangladesh. The lightweight material – chosen by Begum because it can be ‘pulled to create tension and force’ – was sourced in Morocco during the artist's residency last year at Istanbul Modern. The installation – painted in block neon colours – results in tones bleeding into each other as light radiates through the netting in a haze of diffracted colours. It captured the essence of Ilinčić’s A/W 2020 offering, which featured fluid caped dresses, slouchy leather sportswear and chunky cable jumpers in a rainbow of lime, aubergine, magenta and caramel . ‘This collection is really about creating lightness and movement, told with different mediums,’ she explains.

There’s always a strong sense of narrative between Ilinčić’s runway and ready-to-wear design. Last season, she enlisted the London-based art collective Troika to create an abstract runway installation featuring six rainbow projections, inspired by its 2019 Barbican artwork ‘Borrowed Light’. Like the light shining through Begum’s installation, her A/W 2020 collaboration also illuminates female creativity. ‘Art and architecture is the starting point of all of my collections and it's such an honour to have all those wonderful people around me who I've been collaborating with to help me to tell my story.’

INFORMATION

ranabegum.com
roksanda.com

Scene setting: In her usual spring/summer style, the architect-trained designer held her show outside, in and around 2019’s Junya Ishigami-designed Serpentine Pavilion. This year, it takes the form of a single canopy resembling a cloud, formed from slabs of coloured slate. ‘It emphasises a natural and organic feel as though it had grown out of the lawn,’ Ishigami told us back in June. Ilincic added a bold tangerine runway to proceedings, inspired by Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 2016 installation The Floating Piers – formed from 70,000 sq m of graphic, floating yellow fabric – on Italy’s Lake Iseo.

Mood board: Ilincic is known for her imaginative use of colour (also look to Rejina Pyo and Victoria Beckham for S/S 2020’s ebullient colour palette) and the crimsons, ceruleans and ochres in her collection nodded to the work of LA-based artist Mary Weatherford – who creates spontaneous sponged paintings that incorporate neon rods. S/S 2020 incorporated tailoring and day pieces, like slouchy boiler suits, oversized workman’s shirts and mélange jersey blazers, and more dreamlike couture-inspired gowns, accentuated with accordion pleats and huge ruffles. An array of crushed metal yarn taffeta dresses with collars resembling corrugated metal, bore particular resemblance to Weatherford’s work.

Best in show: There was an interplay between voluminous evening wear, of which Ilincic is most famous for, and more relaxed silhouettes. A series of bright draped dresses paired with tailored overcoats, and oversized menswear tailoring in ivory and flax was exquisitely modern. 

When fashion designer Roksanda Ilinčić was first a resident in Kings Cross, it was tumbleweed town – ‘there was literally a petrol station and that is it,’ she says. Who would have thought back then that the London-based creative would now be presenting her first interiors project inside a penthouse suite in the Grade II listed 19th century Gasholders.

This full circle makes the project particularly personal, a trait that the Serbian-born designer likes to use in all of her works. ‘You can spot many details that are really personal, colours, choice of artist. It is the kind of matching that I have at home and presents how I am communicating to the world: my dress, my bag, my jacket.’

Filled with natural light, thanks to the angular rooms concocted by architect Wilkinson Eyre during its redevelopment, the apartment is a composition of colour. Tonal pinks like draping Kvadrat/Raf Simons fabric curtains soak up the sun, while surprising elements of yellow in a playful fibreglass chair and custom red dyed 1996 TriAngle tables by Aldo Bakker reveal Ilinčić’s clever palette pairings.

A lover of vintage, the designer rooted through bookshops to ensure the accessories were complimentary to the many 1950s and 1970s treasures found peppering the space. She focused on female creative energy for literature; find tomes on Eva Rothschild, Barbara Hepworth, Anni Albers, Marina Abramovic and more. In the furniture too, there are odes to modernist female lynchpins Charlotte Perriand and Lina Bo Bardi, while Perfumer H scents muster in the bathrooms.

Perhaps the most powerful work comes courtesy of Swiss artist Caroline Denervaud. Setting up camp for the week one of the other Gasholders apartments, she took on an ‘artist in residence’ approach while creating a mural in the kitchen and screens at the entrance. The striking geometric prints harbour circular shapes, also a theme in the interiors – an ode to the iron gasholder shape. Sculptural moments arrive in the form of Roksanda X Linck ceramics vases, originally commissioned by Nick Vinson for MatchesFashion.com, who collaborated with Ilinčić on sourcing for the penthouse.

As a trained architect herself, Ilinčić’s apartment unfolds as a blending of creative worlds - ‘I am one of those designers that gets inspired by those other disciplines quite a lot, art, architecture. I love to reach out to others and collaborate with them.’ Through this she seeked to create a welcoming sanctuary: ‘[it’s] like a second skin. The moment you open the door you almost feel like you are in you are home.’

Among the rooms that include master bedroom, sun room, study, and sunken courtyard, it is the unnamed room that is her favourite. ‘When I first came here I thought it was strange as it connects two bathrooms, what is this going to be? A space that you can reflect on your day and life, and the time we are living in. That room has a sense of tranquility.

INFORMATION

he Penthouse at Gasholders, £7,750,000

As a recurring theme in their work for Jil Sander, Luke and Lucie Meier once again took nature as a driving force of their spring 2019 collection, which comes in a colour palette of neutral hues, ranging from almond to sky blue and sage. Left in their raw appearance, the minimalistic shirts and dresses are made out of natural yet sturdy fibres, such as leather and canvas, while skin-tight knits and soft draped skirts also leave freedom for the body to move naturally. A human touch then comes to enliven the jumpers and shirts, through pencil sketches of a nude female form hand embroidered on the pieces, emphasising the refined and delicate spirit of the collection.

Acne Studios

Dance is the main inspiration behind Acne Studios’ SS19 collection. Fluid silhouettes in sheer jersey accentuate a dancer’s movements, while more voluminous pieces are worn over the light slip dresses and tank tops after a rehearsal in the studio. Creative director Jonny Johansson used graphics and prints from old ballet posters patched onto T-shirts and blouses, while pencil drawings of grand opera houses create a toile de jouy effect on leggings and long shirt dresses, enhanced with golden lamé. Drawing on the legendary Swan Lake ballet, Johansson created a print which at first glance seems to be watercolour waves on a white canvas. The pattern then takes form of a swan motif, also reflected in the swan-shaped crystals adorning the garment. 

Plan C

Debuting the first collection for her own label Plan C last September, Caroline Castiglioni – heir of the Marni dynasty – introduced an aesthetic of timeless staples mixing feminine elements, such as ruffles, sundresses and crochet, with oversized silhouettes from the men’s wardrobe, to celebrate a strong and self confident silhouette. There is also something very personal about this collection found in the naïve artworks printed on sweatshirts and clutches which came courtesy of Castiglioni’s young daughter Margherita. Representing her brother Filippo and friend Bianca, the two characters were brought to life from paper to garments making them quirky, fashionable friends to carry around.

Roksanda

Inspired by the work of artists and architects, Roksanda looked at how their art goes beyond their main discipline to influence other crafts around them. On top of the list stood Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s tapestry, murals and ceramics, which had a direct impact on the hand drawn feminine artwork used as a common thread throughout the airy dresses and colour block cotton tops. ‘Our own interpretations of his abstract illustrations are applied in several techniques from hand embroidery to patchwork dresses, and the same emotive figures appear again screen printed onto silk scarves and knits,' explains Roksanda. ‘These studies of the female form are part of my commitment to exploring the art of feminine recalibration.'

Simone Rocha

Born from an Irish mother and Chinese father, Simone Rocha drew on the second half of her heritage, and especially her experience in Hong Kong, to compose her summer collection. Flower brocades and embroideries punctuate the bubble hem gowns with puffball sleeves, giving volume to the overall romantic flair. The real focus of the garments however sprung from ancestral references such as 16th-century Chinese ladies from the Tang dynasty and vintage portraits of concubines Rocha found in a market in Hong Kong. From these images, the London-based atelier created red and gold illustrations traced onto the delicate silk dresses, while elsewhere, artworks were directly printed on the whole garments. A delightful mix of East and West. §

How serendipitous that fashion designer Roksanda Ilinčić and art collective Troika work from studios a stone’s throw away from each other in east London. Both operate in different mediums, but their experimentations in colour, from Roksanda’s wearable studies of tone and saturation, to Troika’s explorations into how human perception can alter form, unite their practices.

Ilinčić has long found Troika’s studio a source of inspiration. ‘It’s like an amazing laboratory,’ she explains. ‘Full of maquettes and experimental pieces, liquids and acids and unusual tools.’ She even held the launch of her Cutler & Gross sunglasses line there in late 2016, and used it as the location of her Pre-Fall 2018 lookbook.

In a prismatic partnership, Ilinčić invited Troika – co-founded by Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel – to collaborate on the set design of her A/W 2019 catwalk show, which was held yesterday in Central London. The result? An art installation-cum-catwalk, lined with stark white lightboxes, crunchy salt underfoot, and six large photographic foils reflecting kaleidoscopic light onto models and audience members alike.

‘We’ve never done a stage set before,’ explains Freyer. ‘It was really interesting for us, because you work to very different parameters when making a piece for a gallery or institution.’ Troika’s ‘Borrowed Light’ – a site-specific artwork installed at the Barbican’s Lightwell, and on view until May this year, inspired the runway set up. The suspended mechanised structure is formed from a 24-metre long slowing moving scroll of photographic slide film, changing colour in an infinite loop, in tones that evoke sunset to sunrise. ‘The use of film refers to optical and visual media, and the idea of using this medium to record images,’ Freyer adds. ‘We’ve reinterpreted its role. The film creates rather than documents reality. Over the course of 12 minutes it produces a variant of graded colour.’

‘Borrowed Light is really about blurring different boundaries and exploring how you can perceive colour,’ linčić adds. ‘That’s an idea I’ve been incorporating into my work’. There are threads of commonality between Troika’s runway installation and her A/W 2019 offering too. Ilinčić's excellent autumn collection abounded in a spectrum of colour, from pinks to yellows, blues to browns, and featured voluminous proportions, ruffles and colour-blocked stripes.

The catwalk also formed an exciting testing ground for Troika, who used it to experiment with salt, and the use of what Ruki terms as a – ‘space age’ – lightbox backdrop to aid the kaleidoscopic projections. ‘In terms of a fashion show, we were really interested in the fact different elements like sound and visuals can be overlaid with each other,’ Ruki adds. ‘And also the fact that it is a temporal event with models looping around the catwalk'.

The runway installation also bought a new element of experience to those attending Roksanda’s show, part catwalk event, part artwork, exploring the changeability of colour. ‘It’s like a colourful path merging mine and Troika’s worlds,’ Ilinčić adds.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Roksanda website and the Troika website

‘Anni Albers avoided defining herself in narrow terms and was constantly innovating and exploring new avenues for creating art,’ says Lucy Weber, director of Albers by Design at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The extensive and experimental output of the Bauhaus pioneer is currently on display at the Tate Modern, as part of a seminal retrospective, spanning everything from the creative studies in colour and pattern she produced while studying at the German school, her commercial and function-led creations and her art-focused small-scale ‘pictorial weavings'.

Annie Fleischmann joined the Bauhaus school in 1922, and went on to marry her teacher Josef Albers in 1925, shortly after her arrival in Weimar. Both went on to become leading pioneers in 20th-century modernism, and the duo are renowned for their output in painting, colour theory, textile design and weaving. Josef published his artist’s handbook Interaction of Color in 1963, and Anni released her seminal text On Weaving in 1965. 

A collaborative spirit was at the centre of the Bauhaus philosophy, and it’s particularly pertinent that this spirit of partnership has continued after the Albers’ death, in the form of capsule collections between fashion designers and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

‘In many instances, Anni has left us a perfect road map for creating new objects, from rugs, to blankets, to wallpaper and upholstery materials,' Weber says. ‘I have also noticed that designers are drawn to the order and precision of Josef’s work, as well as to his use of colour.’

Here, we discover what draws Hermès, Paul Smith and Roksanda to the work of the two modernist masters…

Hermès

‘Albers’ principle was a simple one: to create a series of infinite chromatic variations within an unchanging form: the square, composed in a certain way,’ says Hermès’ artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas. In the Parisian maison’s 2008 collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Dumas and women’s universe creative director Bali Barret, travelled to its home in Bethany, Connecticut, to view pieces in Josef’s ‘Homage to the Square’ series.

What resulted was a series of tonal silk scarves – the first in Hermès’ ‘Editeur’ series, which has also seen collaborations with Daniel Buren, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Julio Le Parc – evoking the square variations of colour in Albers’ artworks. ‘They took us to the limits of our savoir-faire,’ Dumas adds. ‘The technique is “frame” printing, but at its most challenging, involving the feat known as “edge to edge,” in which large swathes of colour have to be printed on the silks, so that they touch each other but do not overlap.’

Paul Smith

‘Following a bad cycling accident, I started hanging out in a local pub, in Nottingham, meeting up with students from the local art college when I was there. They told me about this thing called “Bauhaus” and at first I thought it was a council estate but I soon learnt otherwise!’ laughs Paul Smith. ‘It was during one of those conversations that I first heard mention of Anni and became aware of her work.’

In celebration of the Tate Modern’s recently opened Albers retrospective, Smith has designed a men’s and women’s Scottish cashmere jumper, scarf and blanket inspired by a colourful and graphic and untitled wallhanging from 1925. Smith’s A/W 2015 collection – which featured garments panelled in graphic squares of colour, also nods to the tonal gradation in Josef and Anni Albers’ work – took its cues from the couple's research trips to Mexico.

‘I’m most inspired by Anni’s very experimental and pioneering approach to using unexpected materials and fibres,' Smith says. ‘She’d weave a piece of plastic or rayon in the most unlikely of places. She was a true visionary.'

Roksanda

‘Josef Albers really showed how different colours can look completely different in various combinations,’ says Roksanda Ilinčić, who collaborated with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in 2013, on an eight-piece capsule collection, which also celebrated the opening of her Mount Street boutique in London. The designer is renowned for her prowess and agility with colour, and this offering of dresses and separates, was colour-blocked into distinct panels. The pieces looked to the colour theory of Josef Albers’ ‘Homage to the Square’ series, and nodded to particular works like the Homage to the Square (La Tehuana) (1951) and Homage to the Square (1965).

Anni Albers’ work permeates her aesthetic. ‘I’ve also always been drawn to her status as a woman within Bauhaus. Women were expected to work on weaving and tapestry, but she tore up the perception that applied arts categories can’t be worthy of our admiration or high status. Josef and Anni are people that I come back to again and again.’

INFORMATION

‘Anni Albers’ is on view until 27 January 2019. For more information visit the Tate Modern website; Albers Foundation website, Hermès website, Paul Smith website, Roksanda website

ADDRESS

Tate Modern
Bankside
London
SE1 9TG

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Mood board: In Britain’s bleak and Brexit-laden political climate, a pop of colour goes a long way. Serbian-born, London-based designer Roksanda Ilinčić is a pioneer in tone and colour blocking; her collections are bountiful in rich and contrasting shades and make even the most monochromatic dressers want to douse themselves in colour. Ilinčić’s S/S 2019 collection was a triumph of sumptuous shades, from sunset orange to raspberry, fuchsia to vanilla yellow, and was rich in modern, feminine silhouettes. Cinched blazers in deckchair stripes, smock dresses in panelled silk, zesty trench coats and voluminous ruffled dresses. As the sun shone on an unusually warm September’s day, so it also illuminated the pop-colour possibilities of our summer wardrobes.

Scene setting: Ilinčić – who trained as an architect – often draws references from the fields of art and design. In September 2017, the designer showcased her S/S 2019 collection inside the Francis Kéré-designed Serpentine Pavilion. This year, she presented her S/S 2019 offering inside 2018’s lattice like creation by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. The dark structure, crafted from British roof tiles, formed a colourful contrast to the citrusy hues on show.

Best in show: A pair of pretty striped pyjamas had eveningwear pizzazz, their silk top ruched flatteringly at the waist. A series of gauzy, floaty dresses featured figurative details, which recalled Cubist portraits. A coral evening gown with accentuated ruffled had frothy finesse. 

Scene setting: Roksanda Ilincic enlisted contemporary Swiss artist Caroline Denervaud to create a wistful, painterly set for her A/W 2018 show. Denervaud, who studied contemporary dance before becoming a painter and performance artist, creates lines and spontaneous blocks of colour based upon her exploration of movement and emotion. Slim canvases were hung like sails from the ceiling of the runway, giving the collection – which comprised fluid silk dresses, colour-blocked parkas and swing dresses with sculptural panels – a greater sense of movement.

Mood board: The notion of clothing as protection first emerged during New York Fashion Week and has carried through to London. At Roksanda, the sentiment was expressed through long quilted coats (elegant, rather than bulky), thick shearling jackets, oversized scarves and even blankets, which the models clutched onto tightly or threw over their shoulders as they descended the runway. Colours, however, veered towards the calmer end of the spectrum, as though to pacify the wearer – think pale yellow, camel and duck-egg blue.

Best in show: While the finale dresses exemplified Ilincic’s masterful use of silk, iridescent sequins and tufts of tulle, there was no denying the perennial elegance of her outerwear. The oversized camel coat that opened the show, for example, is something that many women would enjoy revisiting season after season.

Roksanda: Architecture has long been a source of inspiration for Roksanda Ilincic – after all, it was what the designer studied in her native Serbia, before moving to London to pursue fashion. For S/S 2018, the designer reclaimed her architectural roots, showing her brand’s latest collection at this year’s Francis Kére-designed Serpentine Pavillion. The Berlin-based architect’s design is shaped like a saucer, featuring a wooden latticed disc elevated on plinths, enclosed with a blue, chevron-striped lattice wall – a reference to the weaved textiles of his native Burkino Faso. The space was surrounded by guests, seated in two inner and outer concentric circles, and shrouded (if a little cold) in cosy navy quilts provided by the brand.

Mood board: Ilincic is known for her eye for colour, and the palette ranged from organic dusty hues, to bold crimson and fuchsia. The collection, too, favoured lean, elongated silhouettes – take a breezy bell-shape dress, with a dropped hem and layers of tufty fringing; a Mandarin-collar kimono, finished with fronds of tribal tan raffia; and a satin tunic, with wide balloon sleeves. Among bright evening gowns, embellished with outré 3D flowers, there were easier daytime looks, including long sleeveless tuxedo jackets, paired with trousers and secured with a loose tie of rope, dusty leaf-print blouses, high waisted trousers and wide A-line skirts which grazed the ankle. 

Finishing touches: Roksanda’s accessory offering has developed season after season. The designer’s jewellery and bag designs emphasise the graphic shapes and architectural elements that inform her designs. For S/S 2018, bags were crafted from a variety of leather shapes, secured with handles made from metal and Perspex discs or squiggles of leather. Earrings resembled miniature Calderesque mobiles, with coils of metal swinging from a single earlobe, and encased within their spirals, colourful semi-precious stones.

Earlier this week, womenswear designer Roksanda and luxurious footwear label Malone Souliers paired up for a second season, collaborating on the shoe designs for Roksanda’s Rothko-hued A/W 2017 show.
 
Since the launch of Malone Souliers seven seasons ago, the London-based shoe brand has become synonymous with intelligent design, crafting pieces using precise lines and beautiful colour-blocked details. Is it no surprise, then, that the architect-trained, Serbian-born Roksanda, who is renowned for her own use of colour and geometry (inspired by artists such as William Eggleston, Julia Dault and Hélio Oiticica), first tapped the duo in S/S 2017 for a footwear collaboration.

‘There is now a real sense of creative intimacy and communication,’ explains Roy Luwolt, founder and managing director of Malone Souliers, of the second runway collection. ‘We’ve both become really invested in the raw design process of the project.’
 
For A/W 2017, this process culminated in slouchy thigh-high and ankle length boots, and delicate slip-on mules in rich claret, chestnut and bright red nappa leather. ‘The styles evolved around finding something that would give the collection a supple and slouchy look without being too heavy,’ explains Malone Souliers founder and creative director Mary Alice Malone. ‘We wanted to reflect Roksanda’s flowing silhouettes.’ This looser shape was also echoed in Roksanda’s interest in nomadic uniforms, with boots resembling luxurious versions of expedition-ready footwear, featuring drawstrings in heavy leather, threaded through colourful enamel eyelets.

‘We wanted the shoes to mimic the contrasting ideologies of traditionalism and modernism in the collection; focusing on texture, contour and colour, curved heels and rubberised and lacquered colour blocking,’ explains Roksanda of the designs, that reflect both of the labels’ interests in fabrications. Roksanda’s own pieces have featured embellishments using plastics and tiny spheres blown up with air, while Malone Souliers own A/W 2017 collection featured silk landscape prints, inspired by early Chinese paintings. ‘The pieces that we have made are undeniably relevant to both brands,’ Luwolt adds, emphasising that, in terms of collaboration, the shoe really does fit.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Roksanda website, and the Malone Souliers website

Scene setting: Working with longtime collaborator Gary Card, the Serbian designer often imagines geometric forms as part of her runway design. For A/W 2017, this culminated in a series of shapes in reds and blues hanging mobile-like along the catwalk of the underground space, wrapped in metallic threads. These geometric cutouts also acted as embellishments on dresses and hung from the ear as oversized single-earrings. Pianist Michael Nyman provided a live musical accompaniment.

Mood board: Roksanda dedicated her collection to the late Australian fashion designer Richard Nicoll. The designer met Nicoll while studying at Central Saint Martins and both debuted at London Fashion Week as part of Fashion East. Friends of the designer have collaborated with Pantone to create the shade ‘Nicoll Blue’ in his honour, and Roksanda’s first look, a fluid long sleeve dress with a kimono-style belt was imagined in this sky-like shade. A series of draped looks followed in blues, reds and blacks, paired with quilted, colour blocked and tweed coats, and finished with geometric embellishments.

Finishing touches: Roksanda collaborated with the London-based shoe brand Malone Souliers for a second season. Nappa leather boots featured colour blocked heels and drawstring ties. ‘The silhouette consisted of a tailored boot till the ankle, then with added slouch to reflect Roksanda’s flowing designs,’ Mary Alice Malone and Roy Luwolt of Malone Souliers’ explained.

Inspired by her early training as an architect in Belgrade, London-based fashion designer Roksanda Illincic has always maintained an interest in industrial fabrications. From dresses embroidered with PVC thread and plastic confetti, to undulating silhouettes inspired by the sculptures of Julia Dault, plastic-focused flourishes are a signature of her bright and colour-blocked designs. Further expanding her growing accessories line, the designer has now experimented with bold acetate on a debut range of sunglasses, created in collaboration with luxury optical brand Cutler and Gross.

Illincic explored the extensive Cutler and Gross archive during her design process. ‘The collection was inspired by vintage frames and modernist shapes,’ she says of the six oversized styles in unusual colourways, like emerald green and mustard yellow, and tortoiseshell and peach. ‘The combinations are off beat and often unexpected which is a natural extension of my ready to wear line, as with my collections,’ Illincic adds.

Placing focus on the playfulness of transparent plastics, Illincic used Italian acetate for both the temples and frontals of her handmade designs. ‘Roksanda’s interest in architecture and structure informed the choice of sheer colour, which allowed the metal wire core to be visible,’ explains Marie Wilkinson, the design director of Cutler and Gross.

Illincic also looked to the London-based contemporary art collective Troika for design inspiration. Interested in spatial experience and human perception, Troika’s installations include Dark Matter (2014), an opaque hanging sculpture that resembles a square, circle or a hexagon depending on your vantage point; and All Colours White (2016), a painting made of light, which rotates from a band of white to a kaleidoscopic spectrum of colours. Illincic’s own designs play with such perceptions. One design features black hexagonal frontals and midnight blue temples, a colour only visible when the frames are viewed from an angle. ‘The shapes are about allowing women to wear the beauty found in design, in a subversive way,’ Illincic explains.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Roksanda website, the Cutler and Gross website, and the Troika website

Giorgio Armani created this pyramid-shaded lamp for his own design studio in 1982. When he launched his interiors arm Armani/Casa in 2000, the design became an integral part of his home collection and got its ‘Logo’ lamp moniker.

To celebrate the autumn opening of the new Armani/Casa store in Milan, at the former De Padova HQ on Corso Venezia, the ‘Logo’ lamp has been photographed across the globe by Wallpaper* contributor Beppe Brancato in the homes or offices of leading figures in the design world. Among them 
are Vincenzo de Cotiis, John Pawson, Jaime Hayon, Vincent Darré, Roksanda Ilincic and Tadao Ando – 
not forgetting Wallpaper’s own Nick Vinson.

The lamp is shown immediately above in the Osaka office of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Ando, who completed the Armani/Teatro in Milan in 2001, on a one-off table of his own design. On the 
wall is a model of Ando’s 1995 competition entry for the Tate Modern extension, while on the desk is a model of his 2011 Casa Monterrey, Mexico.

As originally featured in the September 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*210)

INFORMATION

A special edition of the lamp will be available from the new store. For more information, visit the Armani/Casa website

ADDRESS

Armani/Casa
Corso Venezia 14
Milan

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Mood board: Blue, yellow and black were the most outspoken colours in this collection that otherwise included rather more muted hues than we’re used to of Roksanda. Her talent for construction came through in the tailored pieces and dramatic bomb sleeves, her softer side showed in the layers and ruched details. 

Scene setting: Curved partitions, cubes and cylinders, all in beige, made up the Gary Card designed set at the Seymour Leisure Centre. 

Team work: No less than three collaborations marked this summer show: Tabitha Simmons created colour-block boots with curved cut-outs and laces, Smythson provided the abstract art inspired invitations and taking over Roksanda’s Instagram with her witty and goofy captions was Leandra Medine, the Man Repeller blogger.

INFORMATION

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

Rick Owens: Everyone at fashion week has seen a fringe or two in their time, whether it's sported by a catwalk model, famous face or even a handbag. But an invitation? That's novel, even to us. Rick Owens is to thank for this one, sending a suede-covered, embossed board coated in deep tan and mouse grey suede, fringed by - you guessed it - a trim of luscious locks. Bonkers and brilliant in equal measure

Anya Hindmarch: The doyenne of tongue-in-cheek, Hindmarch sent a miniature textured leather road sign attached to a spot-varnished card, warning us of the dressed-up diversions that lay ahead. It seems she may have tempted fate; the show indeed held London's fashion crowd up, though the eventual M25-inspired runway-meets-motorway (and Little Chef breakfast) more than made up for it

The opening of designer Roksanda Ilincic's first store, on London's Mount Street, also marks the label's new snappier 'Roksanda' rebranding. With an architecture and applied arts degree behind her, the Belgrade native's debut retail proposition joins a flock of new fashion flagships that are putting high-design building materials on show as keenly as their wares. Ilincic worked in partnership with good friend, British architect David Adjaye on the project, and the result is a textural marvel, from the store's monochromatic, terrazzo floor to the brass racks that zigzag down the centre of the Grade II listed building. Tiers of pebbly cement define the interior walls, with floating accessory shelves jutting out at random intervals, as angled mirrors bounce natural light from the space's freshly planted back courtyard.

If the townhouse has a slightly Brutalist vibe upstairs, then downstairs defines the brand's feminine underbelly. Comprising a VIP entertaining salon, spacious fitting rooms and an all-blue guest bathroom, the lower floor is where Ilincic has played with floor-to-ceiling colour. Blush pink melts into Bordeaux and then aubergine, as plush carpeting meets felted walls (one of the designer's preferred fabrications). Given Ilincic's reputation for contrasting bold and muted tones to great graphic success, colour has similarly been used as a clever spatial separator - a splash of chartreuse curving out the store's downstairs children's corner that houses her Blossom line.

ADDRESS

Roksanda
9 Mount Street
London
W1K 3NG

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