Telfar’s bag security programme is back and Stefan Cooke unveils its AW21 collection
Earlier this week we were tricked into taking “a moment of monochrome serenity” during the Comme des Garçons AW21 presentation, which actually turned out to be Rei Kawakubo traipsing us round the back alleys of some haunting Dickensian nightmare. In the days that followed, it felt like that was exactly where we stayed, as tiny skeletal cuffs clutched onto arms at Raf Simons’ latest show, and Kaia Gerber joined the cast of American Horror Story.
Reviving us from this darkened stupor were the newgen collections offered up by Seoul Fashion Week and Central Saint Martin’s graduating MA cohort, which wafted some much-needed smelling salts in our direction. Meanwhile, Emma Corrin decided to auction off her pierrot-indebted Golden Globes gown (which you still have a couple of days to nab) and Junya Watanabe incarnated the legendary Soo Catwoman of London’s punk scene for an anarchic winter offering.
Check out the gallery below for the rest of the fashion talk from this week.
IT WASN’T ALL DOOM AND GLOOM AT LOVERBOY AW21
Charles Jeffrey released his AW21 collection today: a vibrant offering of tartan, hand-painted fabrics, and graphic prints that the designer dubbed Gloom. A misleading title perhaps, but an appropriate sign of the times, which comes through in the construction (or deconstruction) of some of the pieces. “Garments are assembled to suggest a tumbling of fabric, an unravelling, a coming undone: they are perpetually on the brink of dissolving before one’s eyes,” the show notes explain.
A year away from his East London nightlife haunts has given Jeffrey, like so many others, the chance to experiment with his craft and push his savoir-faire. As a result, we’re given new seersucker tartans, enzyme-washed polka dot linens, and upcycled vintage pieces renewed with splatterings of paint. So although Jeffrey attests to the fact that the collection “came out of darkness”, it’s almost more like a flickering light on the horizon.
YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER CHANCE TO SECURE THE (TELFAR) BAG
Fresh from flying a cryptic message across the New York and Los Angeles skyline last weekend, Telfar has announced its Bag Security Programme is officially back. For a 36-hour period kicking off on March 30, customers who have previously missed out on the label’s chaotic weekly drops will be able to secure themselves a bag for good. Any size, any colour, any quantity for guaranteed delivery.
As the brand says, Telfar is not for you, it’s for everyone. “Last year we messed up the fashion world and the bots with the BAG SECURITY PROGRAM – letting you get what you want, without the stress – and keeping Telfar Black Owned and 100% independent,” the brand wrote on Instagram. “You are our investors – and together we are making history again.” Head here on March 30 to snatch a bag of your own.
LOUIS VUITTON WANTS YOU TO GET INTO BED WITH ITS CAPUCINE
Léa Seydoux is the face of Louis Vuitton’s new campaign for its Capucine bag. The portraits, shot by Steven Meisel, feature a bed-headed Seydoux enwrapped in white linen bed sheets, as she poses suggestively with the fashion house’s classic accessory. “The Louis Vuitton Capucine represents, for me, the quintessence of French know-how,” says Seydoux. Capturing the former Dazed cover girl’s devil-may-care abandon, “the campaign portrays the intimate relationship between a woman and her bag and highlights the timeless elegance of the Capucines bag,” Vuitton reveals.
STEFAN COOKE DEBUTS ITS AW21 COLLECTION
Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt unveiled their new collection this week – titled Silver Bells, the designers had whittled down their staple drainpipe jeans, fairisle intarsia knits, lattice motifs, and wool coats into a sharper, much more precise proposal. Last season’s mini kilts, which frilled out over skinny denim pants, were sent out proudly on bare legs. Mini ponchos were presented in Glen plaid and refined navy wool. Puddle boots came splayed in houndstooth. At Stefan Cooke, tradition is always cut through (quite literally) with whimsy, as the stuffy artefacts of British style get spliced and slashed for a new, forward thinking audience.
GUCCI LAUNCHED THE NEW ISSUE OF ITS ZINE
Furthering its commitment to support and promote gender equality through its Chime for Change campaign, Gucci has released the latest issue of Chime Zine. Edited by activist Adam Eli, the new edition centres women-led movements around the world, from the Women’s Strike in Poland to the feminist comic scene in Italy. With a digital version available for download on Gucci Equilibrium, physical copies can also be found at Dashwood Books in New York or the Gucci Garden in Florence. So far the house has raised 17.5 million dollars through Chime for Change, and this year, the label has supported more than 80 grassroots women’s organisations addressing the increase in gender-based violence and discrimination during the pandemic.
DIESEL’S BEEN HAVING FUN ON FACEAPP
Under creative director Glenn Martens (of Y/Project), Diesel is returning to the irreverent flair of the brand’s early years. This week, its latest campaign is a collaboration with, well, itself. The Diesel X Diesel project sees the label update its archival pieces for a new, contemporary audience. There are trompe-l’oeil jeans with fake leather chaps, multiplied waistbands, and plenty of patchworked layering pieces.
The campaign video and photography flips Americana-esque tropes, following a troop of suburban twenty-somethings as they muddle through daily chores and mundane errands plastered with a harrowing smile – if Martens had been experimenting with that trippy, face-distorting app we were all using in 2019.
SELFRIDGES IS BRINGING THE OUTDOORS INSIDE
Last year Selfridges kicked off its five-year sustainability project, Project Earth, which saw the Oxford Street flagship emblazoned with a ginormous “Let’s Change the Way We Shop” sign. This week, the retail giant announced a year-long campaign celebrating the great outdoors. In order to “bring nature into the digital space”, Selfridges will debut a series of digital art commissions, a new podcast dubbed “Pleasure Series”, a set of in-store sustainability-focused workshops, and drops from the archival collections of outdoorsy brands like The North Face.
“The initiative puts sustainability at the heart of our decision making and is centered on working towards a future that’s better for people and the planet,” says Hannah Emslie, Selfridges’ creative director. This new venture “will set the tone for the year, which is a feeling of optimism and positivity in anticipation of a time of restoration, when we can reconnect with customers and communities”.
Courtesy of KenzoKENZO CELEBRATES ITS LATE FOUNDER, KENZO TAKADA
On October 4, 2020, Kenzo Takada passed away aged 81, and the Japanese designer’s legacy lays the foundation for his namesake label’s AW21 collection. “How to transform the grieving into something positive, joyful, free?” asks creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista. The result is less a tribute than a celebration, steering away from reissues of Takada’s iconic prints or garments from the archive, and instead capturing his intuitive spirit.
Showcased in a film directed by Oliver Hadlee Pearch, and soundtracked by Planningtorock, the clothes take inspiration from some of Kenzo’s decades-old shows, featuring bold striped fabrics, lush textures, and oversized silhouettes made to dance about in. Elsewhere, some of Takada’s favourite things — birds, chains, roses, stripes, pansies, and tulips — adorn comfy, quilted garments and hooded bodysuits. “Nothing new could come out of just a polite and reverential look back at Kenzo’s amazing legacy,” adds Oliveira Baptista, on the forward-thinking tribute to the late designer. “Space must be allowed for intuition, instinct, surprises, and accidents. Nothing new can be achieved without these.”
Richard Malone champions the Irish woman for AW21
Since he debuted at London Fashion Week with Fashion East in 2015, Richard Malone has proven season after season that sumptuous fashion need not be an antonym for sustainability, equity, and fairness. And for the Irish designer, the tumultuous events of the past year have only served to bolster these beliefs. From linens made in Wexford, to yarn sourced in the Mourne mountains, to wools woven in County Down, Malone puts craft and culture at the heart of this season’s offering.
The collection itself is made up of lace-trimmed court collars, ruched jersey dresses, and deconstructed outwear. Rust-hued oranges, earthy reds, deep navies, and bottle greens speak to a sense of warmth and majesty. He notes that the Irish female poets Manchán Magan and Doireann Ní Ghríofa provided an entry point for this collection, a season created by an all-female team. “Historically, in the Irish language the energy of creativity is very much this female thing and that’s what it stands for” Malone said of his collection. The regal silhouettes, armoured layering and dense, sheath-like knitwear which followed stood as expressions and amplifications of Malone’s divine, women-centric narrative.