Courrèges, 1993

Courrèges by Jean Charles de Castelbajac, 1993

The called him “The New Hermes,” a reference to his uncanny abilities in leather and exquisite construction. But he was maybe a bit too irreverent, too deliberately immature, for that moniker to stick.

Jean Charles de Castelbajac emerged in Paris in the late ’70s alongside an angst-ridden generation of designers who were ready to redefine the future of fashion with everything pret-a-porter could muster. Kenzo, Montana, Mugler, Rykiel and, eventually, Gaultier; while they all entertained a certain amount of humor that was, at that time, unbecoming of French fashion, it was and his particular joie de vivre that was especially infectious. Becoming a poster boy for inventive French fashion in ’80s, it was in the early the ’90s that he caught the eye of Space Age legend André Courrèges who appointed the Castelbajac to carry on his legacy.

The collaboration was short-lived, lasting only two seasons. But it highlights a rather under discussed facet of the Courrèges mythology. In the wake of the Space Age Courrèges shifted gears. His interest in futurism and space-inspired clothing was never purely formal, for him it was a means to optimism, to progress and, most importantly, to a better way of life. As the ’70s came around he applied his futurist ethos to sportswear, presaging the athleisure trend fashion is currently undergoing. It suited his specific philosophy on life and living: active, healthy, celebratory and fun. FYI, when Christophe Lemaire did Lacoste, it was this idea of sport and that guided his direction for the brand.

For Castelbajac, in the midst of minimalism in the early ’90s, it was an interesting exercise that gave way to inventive, witty, and ebullient clothing. And it’s currently of note not because of its relationship to the recent revival of the house of Courrèges  by designers Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, but actually because of the collection shown the just the day before by Simon Porte Jacquemus.

In recent seasons the punchy (not to mention extremely crushable) young designer has become Paris’s new enfant terrible. Unapologetically French, playfully precocious, and fearless in his use of abstracted form, he favors the same bright gestures and visual hyperbole that was a signature of Castelbajac while his brand philosophy, which espouses confident living and a childlike openness to new experiences, is not dissimilar from Courrèges. In many ways he has picked up were Castelbajac left off in 1994.

The collection he showed for Spring Spring/Summer 2016 was as tender as it was violent, a youthful rebellion against the tyranny of mature appropriateness. It seemed to outline esoteric attitudes of dress for pretty young things, simultaneously sexualizing and dismissing their bodies. It was pop and perky, seductive and quirky, and while it only looked on to the future, it did make one think of the past: a time when fashion could inspire emotion, when clothes could make you feel something beyond consumerist pangs of desire. It was a collection of the future, surely, but it managed to take you back. Back to a very a good place.

Adam Lippes SS 2016: Quiet Clothes That Sing

Agnes Martin, 1965

Adam Lippes knows luxury. He learned it as the right hand to the late Oscar de la Renta and it is literally threaded throughout the hand-sewn finishings of his demi-couture clothes (which he is obliged to sell at ready-to-wear prices). But if in the past his collections have veered towards precious, or even haughty, Lippes has remedied that this season with an appeasement to womanly comforts that are as liberating as they are indulgent. It is the justly outcome when you take on sultry songstress Nina Simone and austere artist Agnes Martin as inspiration. Seemingly disparate, the two women share an utterly modern point-of-view and a resilient but quiet strength. Lippes has harnessed these qualities and has transmuted then into the rarest form of luxury in our modern day: humility.

It was the the righteous contradiction of humble luxury that erupted into one of Lippes’s best collections ever. Taking cues from the the monastic simplicity of Martin’s artist dress as well as Simone’s own sumptuous, though inconspicuously so, style, he presented a collection of quiet clothes that sang. They were quiet in their shapes: easy and unassuming, shapes that a woman could easily slip on, flatter her, and give her no further fuss as she goes about her day. And they sang in the details: the hand-stitched silk grossgrain placket on the back of a cotton tunic, stitched just so as to ensure the neck lays perfectly. They sang in the the multitudes of finely pleated cotton, cut in a peasant shape, as luxurious as any pastoral costume worn by Marie Antoinette on her faux farm. The height of modesty came in a bleached denim apron dress with an inventive and aesthetically delightful tie in the back. Its hem was bound, turned up and blind stitched by hand. It was nearly sinful in its decadent ease.

This season spoke to an emerging feminist philosophy which Lippes has made clear in his shoes for the collection. Flat sandals, designed for Manolo Blahnik, were ornamented with ruffled flounce and marked a new direction for his footwear and a significant shift in his design methodology “If you can’t wear it with flats,” Lippes stubbornly and endearingly declared, “we aren’t making it.”

But a Lippes collection is never whole without the flexing of his couture muscle. A jumpsuit, overlaid with a knotted silk cording came from a reference to Simone’s penchant for macramé. Uniform in appearance, not one of its perfectly formed squares are alike; each are subtlety altered in size and angle, through a process painstakingly executed by skilled hands, as to move flawlessly over the curves of a woman’s body. The reward of such intricate and time-consuming effort, not to mention cost, is perfection. The notes for the collection featured a quote by Agnes Martin: “Simplicity is never simple. It’s the hardest thing to achieve” and Lippes proved he knows this better than anyone else.

Nina Simone, 1965

Trademark SS 2016: Lauren Bacall Circa 1946

You can’t help but think of a young Lauren Bacall clad in Carolyn Schnurer, captured by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, lounging in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar circa 1946. It’s not a bad thought.

Theirs is a vintage-oriented gaze that curiously looks back to a time of absolute modernism. Since launching Trademark in 2013, sisters Luisa and Pookie Burch have championed a lost American aesthetic, reprising the pragmatic sensibilities and precocious wit of the ‘40s era designers whom they appear to be enamored with. There’s Carolyn, of course, but also Bonnie Cashin, Tom Brigance, Clarepotter and most certainly Claire McCardell.

It was a time when American optimism saw its most ingenious designers looking to the realities of everyday life, as well the everyday realities found in life around the globe. They used this keen vantage to enhance their own foundations in sportswear and turn the practical into the remarkable and their American allure of ease outstripped any tediously constructed thing the French could manage.

The effect the sisters have today is not dissimilar. Amidst the whir of fashion brands that currently occupy too much space on the market, Trademark’s wholly realized and immaculately detailed vision of sophisticated simplicity resonates. Strongly.

It’s not design for the sake of a trend, or worse, entertainment, or worse still: not-knowing-better. It’s design intended to charm the wearer, to give her the humble satisfaction that only a wrapped sash of an A-line textured cotton skirt can bestow. It’s the indulgently naïve placement of pom-poms along a superbly considered knit sweater, it’s a trouser that whips about your shins as you saunter. It’s the confidence of sculpted metal adorning the ear.

The clothes, simultaneously proper and primal, evoke a sense of longing. Perhaps it is Luisa and Pookie’s own thirst for eras past. Perhaps it’s the romance of a triumphant and intelligent modern America. You can’t help but ponder what appeasements to contemporary life they might offer and what hidden away glamour they may unlock. These clothes tease and taunt you with a world long past and, in their breathtakingly casual splendor, what might be today.