SHOWnews: Fashion of the Week

Lanvin Gets It Right With Peter Copping

Lanvin levels creative vision up several notches with the appointment of Peter Copping as artistic director. Copping is a virtuoso designer with flawless colour execution (he trained with Christian Lacroix); a sizzling sense of editorial, conceptual femininity (go watch his perverse daughter in mother’s clothes, with grandmother’s craft collection for Nina Ricci right now!); and has that great designer ability that can transcend historic ideals of houses (when creative director at Nina Ricci) with emotion fusing beauty elements of past and present (his beyond 2015-2016 campaigns as creative director at Oscar De La Renta). These qualities make Copping Lanvin’s best fit since 2016 when…nevermind. We won’t revisit a negative situation right now. Let’s just celebrate Siddartha Shukla’s determination to right the Lanvin ship. And boy did he. Peter Copping rides again! Now go play ‘Good Times’ by Jamie XX like it’s 2016 again. That song soundtracked a video with a Lacroix-inspired silk faille dress by Peter Copping.

Make Summer Memorable With New Balenciaga Trinkets

Balenciaga heats sun-kissed desires this season with their Souvenir Shop and Summer Objects launches. Available right now, a series of collectible knick knacks designed to attract tourists across a particularly heavy Paris travel season gets the Balenciaga treatment that turns everyday acts of human cliche into novel concepts. Cue the merch! Balenciaga reinterprets typical tourist fare like mugs, magnets, and keyrings into their Balenciaga-branded Paris street corner. The Summer Objects line also approaches summer literally with black, B-logo’ed sports equipment and beach accessories that best represent fun in the sun. Phrases like ‘Out Of Office’ or ‘All Fun And Games’ printed across volleyballs and surfboards for athletic cousin Jessica match quite easily with Balenciaga Paris baguettes and darkwave techno that Marina, posing at the Eiffel Tower for Uncle Demna (just a coincidence) who just arrived with the family from Los Angeles for the 2024 Olympics. This summer, Balenciaga merchandise goes for gold medal success.

Saint Laurent Men Will Haunt Hot Summer Night Dreams

Honestly, Belgian designers and their attraction to surrealism never stops. Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello is the latest in a long, long, long line of Belgian creatives to channel surrealist approaches for image-making. Helmed by Glen Luchford, Vaccarello’s new fall men’s campaign positions models Justino Gonzalez, Samuel Elie, Thomas LeMaigre and Vassili Schneider as Italian Renaissance statues — or hot ghosts — to echo the sculptural quality of Saint Laurent men’s deep shoulder action this fall. Awar Odhiang and the boys ratchet up drama using tenebrism, a highly melodramatic painting technique, to contrast cinematic effects of eroticism. Muscular poses from the rear recall the famous Yves Saint Laurent-gone-nude image for his 1971 perfume advertisement. It also recalls another house moment with Italian classic leanings, the 1999 Rive Gauche campaign with Stella Tennant and Ivan De Pineda. These Belgique circles of surrealism never end.

Sacai and Levi’s Jeans Love You Down To The Bone

Something strange stomped through the Sacai S/S 25 show a few days ago, that did not feel remotely Sacai. Set design resembled the raw beams of a house. And those models looked young. Edge of fifteen-seeming young. Neither white tees nor heavy black J.M. Weston loafers held a remote feel of Chitose Abe’s Sacai reconfigured clothes. Then, the light bulb burned brightly. The big idea formed fully in the third series of exits — Levi’s® heritage denim in the Sacai world. James Dean's coming-of-age style was the duality, which explained the youth, which latched onto the Tokyo design desire for Americana influences. As it turns out, the new collaboration is not just Sacai meets Levi’s®, it is Abe taking the Sacai style and volume to a global understanding, youth in revolt, next spring-summer.

Damiano David Mustache Diesel A Question

This news should be read in a whisper: Damiano David is the new global male ambassador for Diesel. The Met gala was a transparent clue when David wore his black Diesel and his girlfriend (Dove Cameron!) wore that chiffon Diesel gown. Creative director Glenn Martens attended with Kylie Minogue to throw off the scent. Then there is Måneskin and their liberating, slightly glam, Roman sense of a camp attitude that his style reflects. And for Diesel, this whole marriage becomes sensible! Next up for David is a genderless capsule co-designed by Martens later this year. Until then, let’s gaze at the man and the mustache.

Winter Vandenbrink Vandalises With Rebellion

Anyone with good photographic taste or an appetite for visual stimulation likely knows a Winter Vandenbrink image. His style catches adolescent movements in detail. He isolates street style by focusing on a single gesture from a sole anatomic part. In one image, a teenager may be scratching their freshly buzzed fade. Vandenbrink closes in on fingers to a scalp. In another image, a bomber is layered over a hood over a curly head of hair. Vandenbrink will shoot a side angle from the shoulders up to make it editorial. Torsos are in motion from skating. Braces align teeth and Hilfiger parka collars loosely graze necks. Backs are caped in Palace jackets and Lakers caps. Vandenbrink simply takes 4K photographs that document the spectrum of adolescent activities. Thanks to IDEA books, we can back off the Vandenbrink IG grid to check out Vandals, his new book that explores individuality around young people as they face down mass-culture where everyone around them kinda dresses the same. Vandenbrink’s Vandals book readily embraces the sameness in clothing styles found in London or Milan, Paris or Prague. He extracts mannerisms, isolated movements and expressions over 400-pages to explain the difference.

Bugs Contrast Beauty At Roger Vivier Couture This Season

Sorry Raf, maison Roger Vivier has their own couture trilogy. In its third chapter, the Paris house of haute bags sees creative director Gherado Felloni body a multi ethereal spirit of classic French glamour and nature. Felloni pulls from shared interests with house founder Roger Vivier, a love of insects, for a spell-binding ecosystem called ‘Petites Merveilles.’ Apollo butterflies, ladybugs, scorpions and Belle Epoque feathers are combined with shimmering rhinestones and sparkling textures distinct bags each holding over 36 hours of painstaking detail to create. Maison Vivier bags rest firmly as artworks, offering a dark sense of beauty that celebrates the study of insects.