SHOWnews: Fendi and Valentino Surveillance, Inside Glen Luchford & Meryll Rogge
Hunting Down It Girls, with Fendi and Valentino
Fashion had a renewed obsession with surveillance this week, hunting down It girls and bags in the concrete jungle.
Fendi have given the Fendi Spy bag - a Y2K staple - a new look with help from Gabbriette, Amelia Gray and Xiao Wen Ju. Taking on the investigative spirit of the archive fashion gold digger, the Fendi trio are hunted down through the city's surveillance network, styled by Anna Trevelyan . Remember this SHOWstudio project?
The search for candy continues with the Valentino Garavani Viva Superstar, slipping in and out of the shadows whilst nodding to the spirit of the 70s. Remember, creative director Alessandro Michele was previously head of accessories at Gucci before he took the helm there. So what? He knows a good bag. The growing Viva Superstar family won’t help you blend into the crowd, but will make you that magnetic stranger on the tube at rush hour.
Designer to Watch: Meryll Rogge Wins Andam Prize
This week the Belgian designer took home €300k with the ANDAM Grand Prize. Rumours are already swirling Rogge is up for the creative director job at Marni, but for now, Rogge can look forward to mentorship from Sidney Toledano alongside Special Prize winners Alain Paul. It would be nice for new names making their own brand legacies to be the norm again.
Standing Your Ground
Last year's LVMH Prize finalist, Michael Stewart, has pedalled a solid vision for his brand Standing Ground. Stewart's creations imbue a sense of magnitude, something the designer is always thinking about. Images of standing, monolithic stones in the Irish landscape endure for their S/S 25 campaign - continuing from S/S 24 - photographed by Jack Davison, as Standing Ground writes a lore of its own.
Westwood meets Kawakubo in Australia
Never been to Australia? Now's the time to go, as Rei Kawakubo and Vivienne Westwood are paired for an exhibition at The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Westwood | Kawakubo is about the symmetry, not identical parallels, of the British and Japanese iconoclast designers, from punk and historical reinvention to the body and gender, curated around five themes: Punk and Provocation, Rupture, Reinvention, The Body: Freedom and Restraint and The Power of Clothes.
The show includes loans from The Met in New York, London's V&A Museum, Palais Galliera in Paris, together with contributions from the Vivienne Westwood and Comme Des Garçons archives. Opening 7 December, 2025.
California in Tokyo, courtesy GUESS JEANS
GUESS JEANS has been travelling the world, spreading the news of denim innovation with their plant-friendly, low water use AIRWASH™ technology. GUESS JEANS: The Next 40 Years of Denim first showed in Florence for Pitti Uomo, and now lands in Tokyo at the Los Angeles brand's newly opened flagship in Jingūmae. Bringing Californication to Asia, GUESS JEANS official collaborator Verdy has curated 14 local brands and work for the Gift Shop with Friends in the store basement. 'When I heard that GUESS JEANS was opening a shop in Harajuku, it naturally led to a conversation about doing something together. Rather than doing it alone, I wanted to create apop-up with people who represent today’s Harajuku and street culture', Verdy says.
Glen Luchford in Milan
Glen Luchford has never had a solo exhibition. This September, the photographer is bringing a lifetime of work - we're hoping for early 90s New York, Kate Moss, Prada in the fog, Gucci and Valentino by Alessandro Michele - to 10 Corso Como Gallery in Milan, the space founded by Carla Sozzani and now directed by Tiziana Fausti. Curated by Alessio de' Navasques, it's being described as less 'exhibition' and more 'site-specific installation'. If that means going inside a Glen Luchford picture, or film, we're all ears.
