How could anyone feel less than optimistic about a year that begins with a veritable explosion of polka dots?
Ten years after its initial collaboration with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Louis Vuitton has teamed up with Kusama again for its first major collection of the year, and it’s a bummer. Hundreds of pieces of LV merchandise (sneakers, slides, bags, bikinis, bucket hats, coats, skirts and pants for both men and women) painted with colorful dots, metallic dots and just about every other dot variation imaginable, like happy confetti raining down. in a sea of logos.
Unveiled on Sunday in Asia and Friday in the rest of the world, the line raises the bar for what is quickly becoming a hack fashion trope. (Out of ideas? Do a collaboration!) As well as serving as a boost of joy to a year otherwise shrouded in uncertainty.
Yes, we may be nervous about domestic spending and geopolitics and maybe even a resurgence of COVID, but take a moment to look at the window behind Kusama’s spot-on reimagining of LV’s world and you’ll find it impossible not to smile. Even better, it’s just one of the two. The next batch of goodies featuring more of her signature work will arrive at the end of March – a reminder that there are plenty of interesting, distracting and perhaps even exciting fashion developments shaping our self-expression and wardrobe in 2023 .
What else can you look forward to?
The world’s style-makers were shocked when Alessandro Michele, the designer who transformed Gucci from a gold-clad, python-skinned avatar of aspirational aspiration into a grand tent of emotion, product and identity, announced in November that he was was leaving. His departure leaves a huge void in a luxury megabrand, not to mention pop culture at large, and raises the question of what happens next: more of the same or a dramatic about-face? Whoever is in charge will be partly responsible for restoring the industry’s morale.
Speaking of high-impact new hires: More than a year after Virgil Abloh’s death, Louis Vuitton has yet to name a new menswear designer, but word is that an appointment will happen soon. Whether an LV or Gucci announcement will be made before next season’s big debut — Daniel Lee at Burberry — remains to be seen. Lee is the celebrated designer who left Bottega Veneta under a cloud at the end of 2021. If he can make the same turnaround for Britain’s biggest luxury house and its reputation, it will be the test of London Fashion Week in short.
When Phoebe Philo, a.k.a. the Greta Garbo of fashion, revealed in July 2021 that she would be returning to fashion with her own brand under her own name, there was chest-hugging and squeals of glee from a growing population of women trying . to figure out what to wear since Philo left her position as creative director at Céline some five years ago.
After all, it was at Céline that Philo had become the patron saint of smart, grown-up women everywhere, with her embrace of quietly sophisticated, luxurious minimalism. Now she was coming back, and on her own terms! Joy! Kidnapping!
More information was promised last January, but that month, and the entire year, came and went without any news from Philo’s camp. The smart money says the Phoebe Philo brand will finally debut in 2023. Expectations are higher than one of Lady Gaga’s platform stilettos.
It’s impossible to ignore the fact that movies and TV shows have become not only mega-viewing events, but also mega-fashion events, and that costume designers are often as influential as any designer. To that end, two premieres are almost guaranteed to filter into closets everywhere.
First up is “Daisy Jones & the Six,” the Amazon Prime Video series based on the book by Taylor Jenkins Reid, slated for release on March 3, in the middle of Paris Fashion Week.
The show stars Riley Keough as the Stevie Nicks-like title character, as well as various rock ‘n’ roll models, with powerful 1970s florals courtesy of costume designer Denise Wingate, which are almost guaranteed to form festival fashion for the rest. the year.
Then in July comes the event of the film that has been making its way into collections since the first screen shots were revealed last year: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, with costume design by Jacqueline Durran. Expect a summer of neon pinks and yellows, with postmodern revisionism juxtaposed with the classic fashion palette.
On May 6, King Charles III will be officially crowned, as well as Queen Consort Camilla, and while the event is expected to be less grand than the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, it will nevertheless provide a moment to reset the royal agenda. after Prince Harry and Meghan’s revelations (which will continue this month with the release of Harry’s memoirs). Get ready for at least a fair amount of pomp and circumstance, as well as some serious makeovers and historic images from the immediate royal family, including William, Prince of Wales; his wife, Catherine, and their three children always coordinated. With Prince Harry and Meghan reportedly also invited, the style stakes will be even greater.
The fact that the fairytale ceremony comes just days after the Met Gala, held this year in honor of Karl Lagerfeld and offering a glimpse of a different kind of fashion royalty, will make it a week to remember think
Fashion tends to have a horror of airing its squabbles in court, but two potentially important cases will be happening early this year in the Southern District of New York for all to hear.
On Tuesday, opening arguments took place in the Adidas v. Thom Browne trademark infringement and unfair competition lawsuit, as Adidas goes after the fashion brand owned by Zegna (whose founder is also the new head of the Council of Fashion Designers of America ) if the use of four and five stripes on its sportswear is very close to Adidas’s three-stripe logo. Given the growing synergies between the worlds of high fashion and sports, the occasion, which will continue over the next week or two, could have some major wardrobe ramifications.
Then at the end of the month (assuming the parties don’t reach an agreement first) comes Hermès v Rothschild, Mason Rothschild is the artist who created the MetaBirkin NFT series – that set of digital representations of fuzzy, colorful Birkin likenesses that was also a comment on consumer culture – with all its potential implications for what happens when issues of fashion, creativity, artistic expression and the metaverse collide. Your avatar, or potential wardrobe for your avatar, not to mention the relationship between fashion and that nebulous arena of hoarding otherwise known as immutable tokens, may never be the same.
