If there is one thing more stressful than putting on a fashion show, it’s organising a wedding. That was the feeling that An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx, wife and husband designers of A.F.Vandevorst, gave off with their spring-summer 2017 collection, presented as a video in lieu of a fashion show of any kind.
It isn’t the first time the duo have eschewed traditional formats in favor of a more integral vision, and in Scapular Wings, the short collection video by Belgian filmmaker Dirk Braeckman), a bride ditches her wedding in favor of a music festival because that old ball and chain certainly isn’t for her. The runaway bride makes her escape, roll-gripping what clothes she can in her bid for freedom.
What is for her is the duo’s exacting tailoring, giving pieces (at least) double lives, reincarnating his’n’her wedding finery in trench coats that unzip into jackets, dresses meant to be worn over trousers and corset lacing closing up the sleeves of a street-wise blouson. A dichotomy of black and white highlights the seams of this striking melange which, if at times strange, fits in perfectly with the couple’s proclivity for the tooled and tailored. Slashes and sashes? A fitting metaphor for these runway runways.
