She Walks in Beauty: Olivier Theyskens

Culture, Fashion

If you find yourself in Antwerp in the coming months, or need a reason to go there, a visit to the “Olivier Theyskens: She Walks in Beauty” exhibit at the ModeMuseum (MoMu) will take you back to the time when fashion with capital “F” was still important, when that fickle enterprise still had sweep and grandeur, before the paralyzing effect of irony and false self-deprecation that accounts for much of fashion’s blandness today had set in. It was a time when couture was made thoroughly modern by the likes of Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, and Martin Margiela, those designers who still bothered to learn the fashion playbook before tearing it to shreds, sometimes literally.

Shop:Case – Ann Demeulemeester Flagship in Antwerp

Fashion, Retail

It was with great trepidation that I first walked into the Ann Demeulemeester flagship store in Antwerp in 2001. It was on my first trip to Europe. I was twenty-five, and I was backpacking, reclaiming my American right of passage, about seven years too late, but I had no money before that. It’s safe to say that I was probably the only backpacker this summer to stop over in Antwerp to go shopping for fashion. But it was the highlight of my trip. I stuffed my backpack into a locker at the magnificent Antwerp train station, and made a beeline for Louis, followed by Dries Van Noten, and then a long walk down Nationalstraat to Ann Demeulemeester, saving the best for last. I don’t remember why, but I only bought a belt there, which I still wear. “Just the belt?” the salesperson ask, probably not meaning to embarrass me.

Old Designs, New Life, New Money

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

This past summer Raf Simons held a show in New York City’s Chinatown that was ostensibly based on the movie Blade Runner. The presentation had plenty of Runner-esque elements; the darkness, the wetness were reflected in the umbrellas and the raincoats that Simons showed. But there was one element in the collection that made no sense at all – the New Order and Joy Division graphics that Simons used liberally throughout have nothing to do with Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi film, at least nothing I could discern. Simons showed the same graphics by Peter Saville, whom he is friends with, that he showed in his seminal Fall/Winter 2003 collection, “Closer, “ named after a Joy Divison album.

Undercover by Jun Takahashi and TAKAHIRO MIYASHITA TheSoloist – Next Guest Designers at Pitti Uomo

Events, Fashion

Undercover by Jun Takahashi and TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist will be the next Guest Designers at the Pitti Uomo fair in Florence in January 2018. To celebrate their friendship and mutual respect for their work the two designers will stage back-to-back shows on November 18th in a yet-undisclosed location. For more, please read my breaking news article on Business of Fashion.