#1 GARETH PUGH, 21/02/15 LONDON
This season, Gareth Pugh returned to the London Fashion Week schedule, after seven years in Paris.
Coinciding with a retrospective at London’s Galeria Melissa in Covent Garden celebrating 10 years of his eponymous label, his Autumn Winter 2015 show featured a spectacle of silhouettes, furs, metallics, sequins, leathers and billowing silks.
Matthew Stone’s atmospheric score was punctuated by a raucous recording of chanting football fans that seemed somehow symbolic of Pugh’s unique, anti-establishment, rule-breaking career.
#2 – VETEMENTS, PARIS, 05/03/15
The Paris based design collective Vetements are one of the city’s breakout talents. Their Autumn Winter 2015 show, held inside a dimly lit former leather club called Le Dépôt, was a long way from the Louvre’s Cour Carrée and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, but it chimed perfectly with the brand’s shadowy, anonymous aesthetic.
This season’s collection built on the previous with lots of oversized, larger than life cuts but as outlandish as some of these appear they are deeply rooted in the reality of clothes: able to be worn, thrown about, recycled into other life moments.
The show illustrated Vetements meta-approach to fashion and earned them a spot on style.com’s ’10 Best Collections of the Season’ list.
Vetements Spring Summer 2015 collection is now available and exclusive to 4
#3 – A.F VANDEVORST, PARIS, 05/03/15
On entering the A.F. Vandevorst Autumn Winter 2015 show at Paris Fashion Week all media and buyers were handed masks and overalls. The interior was covered entirely in clear plastic tarpaulin whilst a live band wailed the Velvet Underground’s “White Light White Heat.”
Delivered in all black, only occasionally decorated with lashings of white paint through the performance of Belgian artist Joris Van de Moortel, the collection drew inspiration from the stark landscapes of the Andes Moutains and there was a dramatic flair, boldness and structural integrity to many of the pieces that referenced and expanded upon narratives of last season.
A.F. Vandevorst’s Spring Summer 2015 collection is now available and exclusive to 4.
#4 – IRIS VAN HERPEN, PARIS, 10/03/15
“The whole concept of terraforming (‘earth-modifying’ a planet) started in science fiction, but it has become a reality,” explained Dutch designer Iris van Herpen after her show at Paris Fashion Week.
By “terraforming” her materials, van Herpen invents new textile surfaces. This was carried out through a combination of the man-made and the natural, and at times formed new geologies in the fabrics themselves.
Three-dimensional form was again important for van Herpen: her signature 3-D printing was visible and the distinctly futuristic look of some of the clothing did not override the impression of delicacy, femininity and fluid materiality that was always present.
Iris van Herpen will be exclusive to 4 from next season.
