A FALL/WINTER 2020 COLLECTION REPORT

Riccardo Tisci was in a nostalgic mood. He named this Burberry collection Memories, as a paean to his formative years as a young designer, uprooting from Italy to London where he studied at Central Saint Martins before moving to India after graduation. What’s resulted from that fond trip down memory lane has been more or less a continuation of what he’d been building at the heritage label: numerous options that cut across generations and demographics, globe-trotting sophisticates (uber-luxe coats and suits with copious lashings of faux fur) and streetwear-obsessed youths (endless permutations of the house’s famous checks and tricked-out takes on the humble rugby sweater) alike.

 

Silvia Venturini Fendi has presented a femme fatale that reads as both powerfully sensual and austere in her second solo collection for the brand. Nipped-in waists and a contrasting play on filmy dresses against aggressively voluptuous silhouettes (extremely puffed-up sleeves are a key motif) – all complemented by noirish makeup – neatly charts the dual themes of softness and structure. Continuing that dichotomy is a largely sombre palette of grey spiked with delicate pinks and yellow. Alongside a heady mix of cashmere, fur, leather and lace, it all makes for one visually lush collection.

 

You have to hand it to Maria Grazia Chiuri – once the designer finds something that she believes in, she’s doggedly consistent with following through. Take her pro-women messaging for example, which has been there since she debuted at Dior three years ago. This season’s show set had slogans such as “Consent” and “Patriarchy = C02” (courtesy of the feminist art collective Claire Fontaine). What about the clothes? A parade of elevated everyday pieces of a more relaxed glamour, complete with sportswear and school-boy overtones – inspired by memories of Chiuri’s teenage years in 1970s Rome and guaranteed to delight longtime fans. Paired with combat boots and leather flats, the collection’s overall utilitarian nature can be said to contribute a sense of pragmatism – a subtler nod to feminist values, perhaps?

 

The brand’s show made for an ominous sight with its inky black atmosphere, fiery overhead visuals and deliberately flooded arena. With the models treading the water as they walked, biblical overtones were hard to ignore. They’ve also been reflected in the austere, all-black, almost monastic attire that dominates most of the collection – think sweeping floor-length skirts, suits and caped coats. Demna Gvasalia told reporters he was thinking about contemporary society’s unsustainable lifestyles and he saw floods as an appropriately metaphoric consequence of them. The sense of menace and idea of clothing as armour (one jacket on the runway was literally covered in spikes) are hard to shake off. Doomsday has never looked chicer.

 

The show notes to this collection are shorn of the fanciful prose about obscure inspirations and what-not that brands tend to use on such things. Nadege Vanhee-Cybulski was in the mood for a palate cleanser when designing and she put it plainly as such: “What is useful must be beautiful.” This means plenty of evergreen Hermes staples like blanket capes, blousons, cropped ponchos and leather trench coats all cut and styled in an easy, unaffected manner (read: trend-proof), only that Vanhee-Cybulski has reworked them expertly with primary colours. “Declare the primary colours as a manifesto of purism” read the notes and the effect – whether as a solid bolt as seen on polo shirt dresses or as a vaguely ’80s-ish colour-blocked sweater tucked into lean cropped pants – come across as just the right amount of fashion seasoning.

 

“Romanticism, but without any flourishes,” says artistic director Virginie Viard in the season’s press notes. She might prefer to keep a low profile and has been similarly steering the brand towards a more unassuming – and modern – direction, all while celebrating its history and house codes. This time, she was taken with a particular vestige Coco Chanel herself frequently wore to satiate her equestrian obsession: riding boots. Viard’s take – black and foldable at the knees to reveal a brown cuff – grounded every outfit in the 72-look collection on the runway: from bustier tops paired with flared jodhpurs and skirt suits with scalloped edges to white shirts tucked into elegant long skirts. Accoutrements come in the form of Coco’s favoured Byzantine-style costume jewellery. The versatility of it all say enough of Viard’s vision: easy-going, unaffected pieces that hark back to the founder’s goal of creating clothes that liberate women’s movements.

 

Playing with dichotomies has long been one of Miuccia Prada’s great strengths and she’s back at it with her final solo women’s collection (Raf Simons joins her as co-creative director next season). This time, she wrestles with the seemingly divergent notions of women’s strength (a perennial Prada motif) and traditional definitions of glamour. “Glamour in the sense of something optimistic that helps you,” she explained to journalists at the show in February. Of course, she integrates elements of both in a way that’s come to be typically and distinctively Prada. The opening look on the runway featured an alluring fringed skirt topped with a mannish, belted jacket. A chunky cardigan worn over a shirtandtie combo ended with a familiar Prada trope: a sheer skirt. It all demonstrates that Mrs P is far too intelligent to be boxed into staid definitions. As the show notes go: “Clothing mirrors the pluralism and complexity of female identities. They defy any simplistic categorisation.”

 

It’s not easy to summarise this Loewe collection, which Jonathan Anderson says stemmed from a back-to-the-drawing-board approach: the pleasure of playing with fashion and dress-up (hello feathered headdresses). With streetwear’s dominance in the past decade, those are notions that have taken a back seat. Anderson said he wanted to challenge himself to build new, abstract silhouettes based on Loewe’s Spanish roots and the results are extravagant designs that gamely experiment with proportions and volume. Brocade dresses feature breastplate-esque bodices while those who prefer something less confounding yet equally artful can opt for a gauzy knitted number with trailing, bejewelled bell sleeves. The truth is that it’s hard to describe Anderson’s next-level experiments (this season felt extra out there, even for him), but here’s someone with a vision who – more importantly – is unafraid to execute it in the face of an industry increasingly tilted towards merchandising.

 

For Fall/Winter 2020, Anthony Vaccarello has turned to the chapter of the French maison in the ’90s. By then, the late Saint Laurent had become a legend of high fashion, known for his brand of fine-tuned French chic instead of the subversive risk-taker he was often labelled as in earlier decades. Vaccarello wanted to revisit the tightrope between “discipline and pleasure” that has long characterised the house, which explains the proliferation of prim and proper bourgeoise staples like pussy-bow blouses, ankle-strap pumps and a fine array of double-breasted blazers all notably fetishise pencil skirts, cocktail dresses and even a turtleneck top (good luck with getting out of that). It all certainly makes for a collection guaranteed to raise temperatures. And should one wonder if the blatant use of latex as a means of fetishisation feels a little hackneyed by today’s standard, remember: like the brand’s founder, Vaccarello has always been for expressing a woman’s physicality however she pleases, so dealer’s choice?

"Hyun Ji Shin, South Korea"

Miuccia Prada has been praised to death as one of fashion’s great thinkers, but she was content to keep things straightforward for Miu Miu this season: her collection is a simple yet visually stunning reminder of the power that fashion has to spark joy. Dressing to impress not only others, but more importantly for the self – that was her message and she’s done it best through the opening looks in her show: languorous crushed satin dresses paired with sweeping overcoats and elaborate ’40s hairdos; old-world silver screen sirens come to life. With the collection titled “Toying With Elegance”, it’s not hard to parse the reference to the forgotten pleasures that come with being dressed to the nines – something in short supply in the face of fading dress rules and amplified in the world’s collective lockdown.

 

After a stripped-back, youthful run last season, Clare Waight Keller has pivoted to a more classic, old-school approach to glamour for this collection that’s titled “Arthouse Beauty”. Founder Hubert de Givenchy’s mid-century designs, French New Wave film posters and stills of the legendary French actress Anouk Aimee were all on her mood board. Every single look is covered up, be it with opera gloves and powerful caped coats or via floor-length dresses and dramatically oversized chapeaus. Combined with Waight Keller’s relaxed approach to tailoring and roomy proportions, the result is more elegantly languid than trussed up – the increasingly rare collection designed with adult women in mind instead of the countless others panting for relevance with Gen Z.