A Woman’s Duality Lives in the Shadow and the Light at Akris
Review of Akris Fall 2024 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
THE THEME
Rather than just dressing women for the everyday, Albert Kreimler, the creative director of Akris, was thinking more in terms of daily rituals or routines. Which just like life can prove unpredictable. So it was these repetitive, responsive acts which inspired his fall collection. Tackling questions such as how will an oversized shirt or lace anorak need to adapt for meetings with colleagues to meetings with friends. And should that adaptability be intuitive? So as to allow the wearer one less thing to have to consider in their day. In providing answers, the garments shown today played into the latter, arranged in three acts of “mood, need, and activity change” according to the show notes. Then building in hybridisation so a coat can also be a gilet or jacket, and a trench reformed into a dress and skirt. Sheer was used here, in alignment with this season’s key trends, but as has been seen over the past few days some designers are finding ways to make the material more user-friendly than simply a vehicle of exposure. Through modesty panels, texture, or as seen here, varying levels of colour and contrast, as well as panelled bras and high-waisted underwear, this is the way it is most likely to be worn in the real world.
Having discovered the work of Katalin Deér at Art Basel, her photograms – an analog photographic method made without a camera or negatives, by exposing an object onto a light-sensitive material before exposing it to light – were used across the collection, recalling a method that Kriemler had pioneered in the early 2000s. Her work also inspired the break down of the collection into two acts, with the first being “the fashion part for winter and my artist relationship is the second act, gathering inspiration from an analogue artist for my digital prints” as he explained backstage. In her work the Swiss artist “explores the space between surfaces, bodies, and dimensions” reflecting Kriemlers work today. In interrogating the idea of the dual lives women lead, rather than offer her a one-note way of dressing, as if that will help to simplify her life, instead this collection is about true lifestyle dressing by addressing specific needs and meeting them with an outfit option.
The use of light displays and LED screens have been an integral part of various set design productions this season, and in matching up the last section of looks – think billowing chiffon caftans and wide leg trouser sets – with a meditative light show which changed along with each colour palette, this collection will remain memorable for shedding “Light in an [otherwise] sombre world”.
Fall 2024 for Akris means wardrobe mainstays which grow with you, which are precious, and reveal themselves to be transformational.
THE BUZZWORDS
Living garments, made for the multi-faceted, luminous
THE SHOWSTOPPER
Look #53
It doesn’t happen very often during fashion month, but the simplest of ideas can have the greatest graphic impact. Albert Kriemler’s merging of his inspiration into today’s set design created columns of colour which brought to life the resort-ready looks. Changing colour in tandem, this burnt number caftan also highlighted the work of the artist Katalin Deér who inspired the creative director this season.
THE DIRECTION
THE QUOTE
This collection is for a real woman’s wardrobe, and…I got more innovative than ever in my fabric and knitwear developments, in that there was a casual influence in the cottons and wools, while the sportswear influence on my clothes gave them the utmost modernity.
THE WRAP UP
In describing what was his main focus for falls collection, the word ‘Light’ was used most prominently by the creative director who said “Its the idea between shadow and light” and here light in the palette, lightness in the materials and light as in shining a light on a better way to dress for a multi-faceted lifestyle came together to great effect.
