Dear Shaded Viewers,
This hectic Fashion Week, triumph arrived on a rooftop above Paris. At the AquaKyoto restaurant, Vincent Pressiat presented his latest collection, The Edge. On the lascivious love words punctuated by tense violin of Imalaya Music, Pressiat gave us his more spectacular collection so far, marking the image of women for years to come.
The collection is faithful to the paradoxes Pressiat has made his signature. The garments were suggestive : side laces grazing the body with a clinical precision. Yet equally camp, most strikingly in an imposing organic feather look developed in collaboration with Tommy Solovyov. With the authoritarian makeup by Marieke Thibaut, women are the tackling force of night. On an inclusive casting led by The Frame Paris the effect was total: Women runs the world.
Then came the lady dresses, and with them, the perennial question: what, exactly, is a lady? Pressiat’s answer is eerie of course. Earth tones, flesh-colored crayon dresses, jackets that assert rather than ornament : sensuality turned into power, femininity stripped of its apologies.
Other lines pursue a different logic, more organic . The faux fur pieces read as timeless, but the true mastery lies in the articulation of the fabric itself. A suggestive bustier dress left the room breathless, its aperture falling in precisely the right place.
This is a remarkable evolution, one that positions Pressiat firmly within the conversation of designers whose work belongs in institutions. The futuristic authority he asserts is his own. That it was accompanied by tango dancers moving through the space only confirmed what the clothes already said: he is going higher with the intention to keep going.
Mael Heinz
