Dear Shaded Viewers and Diane,
A favourite of the presentation format, Faustine Steinmetz passed her motion test with flying colours yesterday. Unlike other seasonally topical post-apocalyptic collections we’ve seen, the thoroughly undone and nearly dissolved looks of her runway debut held it together with aplomb and signature sartorial savvy. In the wake of a world in ruins, after a natural disaster perhaps, Faustine’s girls and boys cling in negation or defiance to the familiarity of luxury staples, ravaged though these may have been – and they cling to them in turn. Titled Facsimile, the collection’s starting point were hyper-copied turn-of-the-century classics like the Hermes scarf, the Burberry trench, or the Fendi baguette, the latter tweaked with Faustine’s own F and S initials. All of them had been reproduced from scratch, woven, felted or torn. Jeans were destroyed to the point that all that was left of them was a pocketed belt, or painted over with waxy, cracked white brushstrokes of recycled silicone to a melted-plaster effect. Worn with noughties’ denim kitten heels, tracksuit-inspired silhouettes were so threadbare as to be barely there, yet oddly elegant, translucent lace-like collusions of floating threads. If catastrophe will become a trend for spring 2018, Faustine’s tenth collection shall be its artisanal highlight, with extra kudos for a diverse cast and sustainable sensibilities.
Later,
Silvia
