Given the amount of nylon for hot weather that’s being proffered on the Spring 2017 runways, the rather pungent whiff of warming salami that permeated the corridors of the Westin as guests filed into Henrik Vibskov’s show – or salami factory – was on trend.
If you ever stayed with a German family, the salami is an intensely familiar sight at the breakfast table. The Danish designer served up a happy hour treat linked to this mistreated mystery meat, complete with a factory of intarsia salami and its imposing butchers as the centerpiece installation. From heavyweight butchers of the North to martial artists of the East, there is only one ham-fisted step that Vibskov explains away under the name Salami – The Kitchen of the Non Existing. With this clear-as-mud name, it was a meeting between two twains that couldn’t possibly meet.
Nonetheless, the garments were a well-imagined wardrobe which where crisp cotton coexisted with jacquard, naive breakfast still-life intarsia sweaters with nicely cut trench coats, all decked in motifs that swung between Asia and Northern Europe, including some rather fetching pseudo-calligraphy. One recurring motif was a calligraphied link of sausages which hung around the neck like a rakish scarf. Cuts oscillated between street-savvy and suited, settling somewhere in between on that contemporary slot. Ultimately the sausage factory in the middle of the runway offered less interaction than other Vibskov installations, and little true connection to the proceedings. It’s a shame because the visual distraction obscured the strength of Denmark’s foremost contemporary designer.
Images
Images
Images
Images
Images
