I gasped when I saw many of the pieces in this collection, incorporating motifs of scales, spiraling numbers, map of the heavens, and compasses, and which reads to me like a passionate love letter to myriad Greek achievements of antiquity. I don’t always trust what I think I am seeing, though (sometimes I can either be a little dense, or entirely too fanciful, ha!) and so I was gratified to see that I was at least half right, when I read that Vogue described it as the “…living resonance of Greek culture throughout Western civilization.”
Of the collection’s inspirations, Katranzou notes: “…philosophy, theology, biology, astronomy, trigonometry. Ideas that are so abstract—words that were birthed here two and a half thousand years ago—and the wonder that they can be so relevant today.”
See below for some of my personal favorites from Mary Katrantzou’s Spring 2020 Ready To Wear collection, and pop on over to Vogue to see the collection in its entirety.
Do the kitschy-campy day-glo electric neon flights of fancy in the runway clip above and in the video below remind you of anything in particular? Anything that calls to mind perhaps, an 80’s cartoon teeming with glamour and glitter, fashion and fame?
[EDIT: I just found this article from earlier this month and it looks like it’s no accident–though I mean, really, how could it be, haha.]
If you need some extra convincing, peek at Jem and The Holograms and the Misfits in their ensembles below! I’ve got a good feeling that Jeremy Scott & Co. has got some fond memories of these gals.
*Super vulgar bonus extra credit, but I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t share: some Jem parody videos
*Not so gross extra credit: have you read the comic book version of Jem and the Holograms, featuring gorgeous, expressive art from Sophie Campbell and some updated twists for a modern, forward-thinking audience, but all the campiness and ridiculous rivalry in the old cartoon? You should definitely check it out!
The Maison Francesco Scognamiglio Fall 2019 Couture collection, with its contrasting play between excess and restraint-the undulating satin, that see-through tulle, those rivulets of crystals and embellishments!–call to mind languid lady vampires swanning around an abandoned moonlit chateau, or perhaps flickering amongst the bleached bones scattered throughout the sandy stones of a coastal cliff-side ruin at twilight.
If there is a sigh between salacious and celestial, I think it is in that whispered instant that this collection leaves you gasping.
Excuse me while I slip away into this Roversian dream world where one swans in silence on velvet staircases, leans tenderly into the open hearts of somber trees, and runs away forever to weep one’s sorrows into the thorny embrace of labyrinthine shrubbery.
(I recall seeing this October 2009 W Magazine editorial several years ago, but it’s resonating so deeply with me right now. I frequently these days find myself longing to hide away from everything in a secret dream world via a hidden door in a hedge. I’ll come back in 100 years and all my troubles will have crumbled to dust.)
Photography: Paolo Roversi
Hair by Rita Marmor/TRESemme; makeup by Lucia Pieroni/ Streeters for Cle de Peau Beaute; manicures by Yuna Park/Streeters. Models: Jac/IMG; Darya Kurovska/Supreme; Dorothea Barth Jorgensen and Regina Feoktistova, both at Women Model Management. Set design by Piers Hanmer; production by Viewfinders; digital technician: Antonio Pizzichino/d-touch. Photography assistant: Arno Frugier. Market Editor: Carolyn Tate Angel. Fashion assistants: Kathryn Typaldos and Katie Casamassimo
Moncler 4 Simone Rocha Fall 2019 Ready To Wear: a collection that gently encourages you to take off for the deepest, darkest wood you can reach on foot, and then, after catching your breath and spending a moment to locate just the right spot on the mossy forest floor, beneath a shadowy elm, near a patch of violets or lady’s mantle, you can take off your coat–which doubles as a luxe down comforter, or a satiny quilt, or your Aunt Franny’s ruffled heirloom coverlet–and have a lovely lie down. Sweetest dreams, fashion plates.
If you ever had wanted a runway/haute couture installation version of Tale of Tale’s eerie video game The Path, (an interactive, and relentlessly unsettling retelling of Little Red Riding Hood) …
…I believe that witnessing the gothic-folkloric-with-a-rebellious streak fantasy of Ulyana Sergeenko’s Spring 2019 collection* debut in Paris under the direction of Ellen Von Unwerth will, in a vague way, scratch that strangely storied fairy tale forest itch.
*So it’s apparently inspired by Nobel prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov’s epic novel And Quiet Flows the Don,a story of Cossack women set during the dramatic days of the revolution and civil war in the early 20th century–but even if just for a moment as they circuitously gathered on the gloomy forest path of that cleverly designed stage–I saw what I saw!
In actuality, though, I suppose the garments resemble nothing even close to the casually dressed shadow-chic of The Path’s characters, nor it’s bleakly beautiful, forbidding atmosphere. Someone needs to make that collection happen!
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As much as I love the art of fashion and and finery of fancy duds and the avant garde absurdity of runway couture, I don’t now, nor have I ever subscribed to any fashion magazines. Fashions are fleeting, after all, and magazines are just so many piles of paper taking up too much space.
“@harpersbazaarus asked me to write about witchy fashion so of course I said yes. “Modern witchiness reveals itself through fashion in clothes that articulate joy and express a healthy relationship with mortality while also being difficult for the male gaze. It’s not about dressing to please an amorphous other but yourself: Grey Gardens meets Wednesday Addams meets Stevie Nicks meets nuns. Luxe meets feeling yourself meets fuck off.”
Much of the photo shoot can be found online, though it looks as if the article is not up yet (and I am not entirely certain that it will be.) I can’t remember the last time I bought a magazine, but I’m definitely going to seek a copy of this one out–I devoured Machado’s Her Body And Other Parties and I am eager to delve into more of her eerie, feminist perspectives and narratives.
I will note that I (and many people, no doubt) would have appreciated more diversity in the shoot. Witches –and people who love fashion–come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Come on, Harper’s Bazaar…this would have been such a great opportunity to be inclusive! Do better!
“Witchcraft is the New Black”
Harper’s Bazaar US November 2018
model: McKenna Hellam
photographer: Pari Dukovic
stylist: Cassie Anderson
…because sometimes you’re compelled to dash off the catwalk and flit into a dark wood to convene with your swanky sistren and cast a quick protection circle. It happens.
Most Resort collections are a milquetoast pastel snoozefest, but I am currently quite keen on the evocative romance of Erdem’s flowy fabric and dark, dreamy watercolor florals. And look at all of those dear, sweet ribbons and wreaths and ruffs and fluffs and gloves! Very high tea in a haunted English garden with your dangerously eccentric auntie, and I am here for it.
My How To Wear sets are mostly wishlist type yearnings–often people say to me, “wow, everything is so expensive! I wish you’d do a budget friendly one!” Well, tough titties, folks. I don’t spend my time wishing away for budget friendly items! Make your own thrift store friendly lists or whatever–that’s not my thing. I like dreaming about posh, luxury items!
HOWEVER, I have included one set (above) that is full of things* I already own, or wear, or are very similar to things I own, or wear. And since I can’t afford those 5K frocks, this is the one concession I will make. So there!
*though all of the things in the above image are listed over at Haute Macabre today, I will tell you the moth necklace from Flannery Grace Good, the bag from Baba Studio, and the scarf from scarf shop are my very favorites!
I gasped when I saw many of the pieces in this collection, incorporating motifs of scales, spiraling numbers, map of the heavens, and compasses, and which reads to me like a passionate love letter to myriad Greek achievements of antiquity. I don’t always trust what I think I am seeing, though (sometimes I can either be a little dense, or entirely too fanciful, ha!) and so I was gratified to see that I was at least half right, when I read that Vogue described it as the “…living resonance of Greek culture throughout Western civilization.”
Moncler 4 Simone Rocha Fall 2019 Ready To Wear: a collection that gently encourages you to take off for the deepest, darkest wood you can reach on foot, and then, after catching your breath and spending a moment to locate just the right spot on the mossy forest floor, beneath a shadowy elm, near a patch of violets or lady’s mantle, you can take off your coat–which doubles as a luxe down comforter, or a satiny quilt, or your Aunt Franny’s ruffled heirloom coverlet–and have a lovely lie down. Sweetest dreams, fashion plates.
