SHOWnews: Walter Van Beirendonck In Florence, Juergen Teller In Sandals and More

1 Granary Looks Good In ECCO Leather

ECCO Leather's collaborative projects give creatives the tools to think bigger. Fashion can be - correction, is - restrictive. Money, clunky production chains and poor materials are a major hindrance to good design, let alone innovation. In recent years ECCO Leather have launched concepts such as ECCO.Kollektive, where designers like Kiko Kostadinov and Peter Do have been invited to create capsules with access to ECCO Leather facilities. Now they've partnered with the fashion education platform 1 Granary on a new programme of guest designers, kicking off with Duran Lantink, KNWLS, Johanna Parv and Charlie Constantinou.

The designers, curated by 1 Granary and founder Olya Kuryshchuk, will be able to learn from and experiment with ECCO Leather's unparalleled tannery - which develops over 1000 types of leathers - and leather-making workshops in the Netherlands.

'The future of fashion lies in the seamless collaboration between designers and manufacturers, where innovation and sustainability emerge from the process, not just the product', - Olya Kuryshchuk.

Vivienne Westwood and Palace Collate A New Style Revolt

Vivienne Westwood and Palace put their subversive, political energies to covetable use on a full collection of clothing, accessories and of course skateboards. The total offering builds off irreverent signatures that incorporate punk-inspired designs, bold prints and street aesthetics with humour. See how evenly matched this partnership sounds?

Palace skateboard legend Lucian Clarke and the distinctive model Issa Lish translate the message of a 50/50 collaboration. While Westwood ‘Portrait’ corsets and orb logos mix with Palace triangles dotting hoodies, t-shirts and flight suits, those signatures leave room for Palace to get comfortable inside Westwood’s house of logomania. Womenswear, a Palace first, features largely as the ‘Portrait’ corset concept from Vivienne Westwood A/W 1990 is updated with prints of Palace founder Lev Tanju’s dog Stuart.

Shoichi Aoki, who founded Japanese streetstyle bible FRUiTS, shot the collection campaign in the style of his zine. Alongside Clarke and Lish the campaign features Semetary, Matt Ox plus Issa’s boyfriend Ed Teller. Reproduced as a limited-edition zine available with in-store purchase, this collision of skate culture and fashion is available starting today at Dover Street Market.

Walter Van Beirendonck Returns To The Classroom

In a conversation with the legendary, wildly influential fashion designer, educator and sociopolitical positivity activist Walter Van Beirendonck last year, we discussed his stepping down as head of the Royal Academy at Antwerp’s fashion department in 2022. It was suggested that maybe he could become a global touring educator. Much like the Grateful Dead, he would move seamlessly wherever he felt students needed guidance from the boldest instincts in the business. As Polimoda announces his arrival as mentor of their Master in Fashion Design for the new academic year, it appears Mr. Van Beirendonck is doing just that. This fall, fortunate Florentine students get to learn from a true original who will question their design methodologies. Mr. Van Beirendonck’s authoritative sway with environmental issues, thought-provoking social responsibility and graphic design has been used to revolutionise dreams from his themes in fashion for forty years now. His tutelage has helped Raf Simons, Craig Green, Meryll Rogge and Igor Dieryck excite the industry while also keeping jobs after graduating! Mr. Van Beirendonck will no doubt continue to shape young lives while guiding their experiences at Polimoda this year. Good for him, better for them!

Solange Dreams Stir A Wales Bonner Dream Study In New Campaign

Grace Wales Bonner continues her thoughtful, culturally rich approach to fashion in a campaign starring Solange Knowles. These two friends and collaborators are no strangers to culling cultural richness from applied art practices. In 2019, Wales Bonner’s ‘Devotional Sound’ touring event explored notions of raw ecstasy from reactive performance with Knowles, who premiered songs from her third album When I Get Home. This campaign then becomes a lot less luxury marketing hypnosis and more friends with good taste organically vibing together. This ‘Dream Study’ from Wales Bonner A/W 24 is simply the latest iteration of intuitive instincts driven by Black historic spirituality.

Liam Gallagher Joins Stone Island’s Community

‘Community in the form of research’ is Stone Island’s own branded experiment to sort who fits best within the subcultural lexicons underneath its compass patch and fabric innovations. Stone Island yields results for A/W 24 with rock (don’t dare saying Brit-rock) and cultural legend Liam Gallagher, actor Russell Tovey and skateboarder-cum-model Sage Elsesser. They present a music, sporting, art triptych that allows spaces between each genre to connect as each multifaceted personality fertilizes each respective interest. Go-to campaign shutterbug David Sims captures the experiment in full completion with familiar Stone Island white portraits with Stone Island’s advanced technology digital details, always fleshed out to read for your material pleasure.

Dsquared2 Presents New Icon Victor Perez

The new Dsquared2 Icon New Generation collection blends casual and playful elements that suggest anyone, well everyone, is iconic. Dean and Dan Caten take the mainline’s contemporary spirit — swagger — to evolve modest, monochrome colours in modern ways to reinvigorate your wardrobe made famous by luxe athleisure’s territory. Icon New Generation continues to embrace streetwear aesthetics, incorporating sculpted puffy shapes into relaxed fits, bold ‘Icon’ prints and oversized trainers. This reflects the ongoing influence of street culture on high fashion. Rome-based musician Victor Perez might be the sexiest marshmallow man ever as the collection’s campaign star enhances Icon New Generation’s versatility that shows how Dsquared2 adds sizzle to comfort.

Birkenstock Covers 250 Years In 700 Pages

This week, Birkenstock invited us over to Shoreditch for a photo exhibition of rare images depicting their enduring legacy these past two and a half centuries. We were surprised and we were impressed at how successfully this visual story spotlithow relevant Birkenstock has been throughout all of our lives, literally everyone. Birkenstock curated a history of collages that framed marketing materials from private estates and public auctions, first-ever campaigns and editorials. We saw the collaboration from Toogood and we nodded. We saw the Rick Owens ‘furkenstocks’ collaboration and we drooled. We previewed Old Mills Never Die, a series of five detailed books that approach Birkenstock’s universe in distinct ways, out in November. We obviously clocked the Juergen Teller edition. You will see what we saw on 19 September when The Book Of Birkenstock, essentially this detailed exhibition in printed matter, launches.