Reviews of GmbH, Juun.J, Isabel Marant Homme, Sulvam, Balmain, Davi Paris, Doublet, Li-Ning, & Maison Mihara Yasuhiro Spring 2021 Fashion Shows
Day 3 – Biographies – Some Auto, Others Not.
BY LONG NGUYEN
Yesterday, on day 2 of the Paris men’s digital show week, designers returned to their homes and home bases to regain, recharge, and renew.
Today, on day 3, the designers’ personal histories take center stage, providing the narrative and the impetus for fashion.
LI-NING
“Game On” is in part a very brief introductory visual autobiography of Li Ning, the Chinese gymnast who won six medals – three golds in floor exercise, pommel horse and rings, two silver and a bronze – at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the first time the People’s Republic of China participated in the global sports event.
Premiered around midday today at the Paris men digital fashion week, the newsreel film narrates the dual story of Li Ning the man and Li-Ning the brand, starting with the gymnast’s gold medal wins featuring original television footages showing his performances – especially those show-stopping tense moments on the rings where the slightest deviation can spell a decimal difference between winning and losing. Li-Ning the brand was founded in 1990 with the initial goal to provide Chinese national athletes in track and field, badminton, table tennis, basketball, and swimming with homemade apparel for international competition; Li-Ning has since grown to become the largest sporting goods company coming from China. Now this original goal post has shifted to encompass global expansion, which began with a fashion show staged during New York fashion week at the end of January 2018, and after that in Paris with the launch of a special collection geared more towards high fashion and streetwear style consumers.
Against a fast-paced colored graphic background, several models wore some of the latest apparel and footwear – a grey sweatshirt with pleated wide-leg pants, black and white graphic sweatsuits, and a white crinkled shirt jacket pantsuit as they performed stances of the soft martial arts Tai Chi Chuan to demonstrate the fluidity of the clothes made for all occasions, particularly off-field. The film segment ends with still life shots of three new sneaker models representing the brand’s essence of merging Chinese heritage with current technology – the sculptural running ‘Xuan Kong’, the skate and surf ‘Wave Zen’ and the past and future ‘Exd 2021 Boom’ – presented in a strong mix of colorways to enhance the 3D structure of each sneaker.
Creating a brand and the type of products that resonate with very discerning youth consumers today requires working with other talents, aka collaboration projects that serve to expand both audience and consumer reach, slowing the pacing to scale up its current status as a niche brand. Hopefully, with the on-going global expansion, Li-Ning can achieve its goal of sharing the podium equally along with the sports giants Adidas, Nike, and Puma – both in creating the business and more importantly achieving dominance amongst style conversations. Li-Ning has already strengthened its ground game with partnerships in various fields from sports with Dwayne Wade and CJ McCollum, from fashion with Stefano Pilati and his Random Identities label, and with the action film star Jackie Chan.
“Game On” is brief and effective as it feels like a personal pitch rather than an arduous exercise in branding. That’s a better way to reach young consumers.
DOUBLET
“This is a story of a bear who loves Christmas, birthdays, and Valentines. He is very busy in the winter. On the other hand, he does not have anything to do in the summer so he decided to celebrate un-birthday,” a voice spoke in the short film “Strangest Comfort” as a person dressed in a full brown crochet knit bear outfit walked the streets to return home and then sat on a chair. The bear then sews clothes and makes presents to surprise his friends with specific gifts – a khaki trench coat, a black jacket, pink toes, and white print socks. The bear even interrupted a wedding ceremony to bring the ring and everyone danced together. “The bear is happy giving presents to his friends,” the voice affirmed.
Directed by Kaneda Satoki, the film shifted to show the bear at home with his hand wounded, and another bear in a chocolate outfit came with a present and bandages. Everyone smiled and danced joyously as the voice over reminded us “gifting is important but caring for someone and seeing their smiles are more important.” The final image shows the bear handing a gold paper wrapped box to the audience.
The designer Masayuki Ino, winner of the 2018 LVMH prize, is undoubtedly dressed in the crochet as the bear star of the film, which is maybe his second personality. This super cheerful and warm film presenting some of his spring clothes is perhaps a reenactment of some childhood dream, or wish to make everyone happy in such an innocent manner.
The video is surely a perfect mood lifter and a nice welcome into the Doublet world for those who are unfamiliar with this young brand’s ethos, as well as its own kitsch references to remake familiar garments all done with just a little bit of personal humor.
ISABEL MARANT
In her first stand-alone presentation of menswear which she normally shows together with the women’s collection, Isabel Marant presented a video titled ‘Tender Night’ of two models Alpha Dia and Braien Valksaar wearing different outfits from spring and moving freely around the concrete Centre National de Danse in Pantin, a suburb north of Paris, to a drum-heavy soundtrack.
Marant showed more clothes this time than she normally would with just a few male models in her strong women’s show platform. The clothes come with more light pastel coloring such as a light pink knit top and purple cotton pants, violet geometric patterned print nylon trench and white jeans with hints of washed paint, a series of light cotton knits with graphic stripes, a blue running uniform or a white/black print and pink drawstring pants.
The mood of the film reflects the calmness, just like the way Marant’s men’s clothes have never screamed for attention but you just simply notice them.
CASABLANCA
The French Moroccan founder of Casablanca Charaf Tajer spent time in Hawaii in lockdown, when he got stuck on the island during a research and inspiration trip in March. Thus manifestations of the colorful Hawaiian shirt become the base of his new Casablanca collection, a two-year-old men’s brand known for the soft but elegant reinterpretation of leisurewear classics, but in a nostalgic and retro manner recalling movie stills from a bygone era.
In case no one noticed, Charaf Tajer started the Paris streetwear brand Pigalle along with Stéphane Ashpool; thus making the kind of clothes that exude the heritage of French luxury is a very familiar territory where the cool, the beautiful, and the luxurious can all be merged seamlessly.
Blue and violet silk palm tree printed short sleeve shirt and white cotton pants, green palm printed jacket and classic white tropical wool slightly flared cigarette pants, white and blue or brown and navy windowpane stripe double-breasted suit, a white single-breasted suit with dark green piping or floral print silk shirt and white pleat front pants are the key items from the video show titled “After the rain comes the rainbow”. The late-day dimming sunlight and studio lighting add to the mood of rebirth and a new dawn, as models move to the tropical sounds.
Pairs of large white pearl necklaces and bracelets and giant white pearl earrings worn by the models add to the requisite currency of gender fluidity and neutrality in this super retro mood video, fitting Casablanca’s grounded aesthetics.
SULVAM
“Imagining people enjoying fashion. Fashion can reflect the world and at the same time, it also has the possibility to change the world. Black which is considered the heaviest color can be seen as light depending on fabrication and technique,” the Japanese designer Teppei Fujita said of his video for his label Sulvam, showing a pair of models standing completely still in different outfits in the middle of a divider on a major avenue as traffic swirls on both sides outside of his studio in Tokyo. When there were no cars, the camera focused in on the models’ clothes – a salmon-orange sleeveless tunic tied in the back and cotton pants, white sheer shirt and black cotton tank, charcoal gray striped coat suit with light pink inserted ribbon fabrics, black and white mixed printed suit, or a two-button light gray loose pantsuit. The stillness was interrupted at times when the light blow of wind moved the fabrics on the models’ body.
“I have no specific concept for each season. I have been making clothes with my feelings,” Fujita explained regarding his approach to fashion. “Pattern making comes first of the design process, it’s more like pattern making itself is the definition of design for me. Cutting a pattern makes magic happen. Do not be confused. There is no more trend which is meaningful.”
In the stark and direct video, Fujita views his work as a kind of fashion completely distilled from influences and a kind of fashion that arises from the crafting techniques of making clothes. Gone are inspirations and mood boards and cultural associations – so much that we have come to associate that with modern fashion.
JUUN.J
From Seoul, Juun.J showed a black and white film ‘SeoulSoul’ comprising chiefly of male and female models walking along highways and back alleyways wearing his signature military uniform clothes, albeit with certain design twists like flare cargo pants or very large shoulder coats. Black trenches and large cargo pants or shorts, cocoon short cotton coats, paneled black leather jackets, and long sleeveless black gabardine long coats are the outfits visible in the sun contrasted visuals of the film.
Owen Pallett’s soft music played as models walked along the backside of some of Seoul’s recognizable landmarks, but the affinity for creating an ‘art’ film with moody darkened lighting rendered the details of Juun.J’s clothes shown here, like the proliferation of cargo pockets, difficult to view. Perhaps that was the intent.
DAVI PARIS
In the opening scene of the short film ‘The Last Days of Summer’ that Davide Marello commissioned for Davi Paris, a voice in French asked the male model Hugo Gillian who has been walking along a windy sea shore “What is your dream?” just before he descended to the beach and joined a group of two other models – Tom Bird and Ismael Choudery. They walked casually on the beach in floral printed shirts and pants, ecru knits and navy floral shorts, or a beige petal printed shirt and navy short pants. None really gave a clear answer to the question, just some mumblings of incomplete sentences. “I don’t know,” one of the guys finally said.
“What is your most beautiful memory?” the voice asked Tom Bird who is wearing a black jacket and black pants as the camera zoomed out to a view of the ocean waves. He raised his hand and opened his left palm allowing the ocean wind to blow the fresh pink flower petals away from him.
GMBH
In lieu of showing in a normal way, Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik presented a three-part project with two art films and a third installment that reflected both the core of their social, political, and fashion beliefs and in GmbH, a brand they founded in 2016, that espoused the notion of the essential wardrobe items, transforming these mundane clothes – workwear, baggy utility pants – into cleverly modified versions.
In the first film, ‘Guest on Earth’ the dancer M.J. Harper wearings a black long coat and plays the character of an invisible person walking through different neighborhoods in Berlin, seeing people homesick for their own countries, for memories and for lost loved ones but without being seen by them. “I want to go home to the humans like a blind man trans-illuminated in the dark by sorrows,” a voice narrated in this Francisco Sendino film where all the characters seek human connections.
The duo presented a film by Lars Laumann titled ‘Season of Migration to the North’ on GmbH’s regular Paris schedule show hour. The film depicts the story of a gay activist and architect Eddie Esmail, who staged a men’s fashion show in Sudan and was arrested and went into exile in Norway. Most of the film is a personal narrative with scenes from the actual runway show in 2015. The film touched on issues of migration, fashion, queerness, politics, economics, and social policies that GmbH makes part of their fashion platform.
The last installment or part 3 is an actual GmbH’s spring lookbook featuring signature black leather pants with multiple front zippers worn with a black silk shirt, short sleeve black leather belted shorts paired with slim leather pants, leather and cotton patched jeans, black boat shouldered turtle collar or a long collared shirt coat. Even in difficult times, the designers managed to produce what is close to their hearts.
“I want to go home to gaze towards the stars …” the voice said as the film ends.
MAISON MIHARA YASUHIRO
In a pink bedroom, a puppet is awoken by an alarm clock. Thus begins the film ‘More or Less’. But this is no ordinary puppet as he is dressed for attending an actual runway fashion show in Paris, complete with paparazzi and all the accouterments associated with a fashion show today rendered in comical terms. Seasoned show attendees sure can relate.
The show starts and real models sporting the spring collection walk but their faces are blocked by colored rectangles. Meanwhile, the puppet furiously took takes notes on the clothes – boxy black pantsuits, green military cargo jackets, short flare jeans with side ruffles, an olive A1 bomber jacket – all different elements that Yasuhiro fuses together in one garment.
For the finale, a puppet in a red jacket comes out and salutes the crowd and acknowledges their applause. But the film by Takaumi Furuhashi abruptly ends with the puppet designer on an empty stage with his puppet audience, all motionless and silent.
What is fashion then when the show simply ends on an empty stage with puppets as designer and audience? We are stuck in finding an answer, just like the model being asked what is his dream in the Davi film earlier in the day.
BALMAIN
A picture of the Paris headquarter of Balmain surrounded by water with the gold entrance visible at the front side filled the screen while waiting for the last iteration of Day 3 Paris men’s shows to happen – live at 2:30 PM in New York.
“My own history makes it clear. Change can happen. Progress is possible. Today as Balmain celebrates 75 years of Parisian excellence, Balmain-sur-Seine also looks to the future to highlight the powerful optimism,” said the Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing, who last week celebrated with a boat trip down the Seine on a Sunday afternoon in plain view of the public who flocked to the quays and bridges to glimpse the boat full of models sailing by. On the boat, Rousteing directed models wearing the house’s couture from 1946 up to the present and the future, with some men’s looks for next spring on board as well.
“My own optimism in a better future is something that echoes the unusual legacy of Pierre Balmain. It was 75 years ago that Balmain decided to take a risk during an uncertain time and open his eponymous couture house,” Rousteing said, and how the current time reflects the post-war years of difficulties. One model wore a couture dress from 1946 – a strapless multi-layered tulle corset dress with flower embroideries, one wore a strapless green, black and fuchsia taffeta corset dress from 1956, and another wore a strapless twirls-of-color satin dress from 1989, while the singer Yseult performed lived with a cast of dancers who performed in the fall men’s show in January.
White boxy double-breasted 6 black button jacket worn with multi pleats pants, a collarless black jacket with white double lapel and flare pants, and a black square-shouldered double-breasted jacket with tight fitted black pants are a few of the discernable new men’s looks amidst the historical couture dresses, all worn with white sneakers and white square sunglass. Here, the emphasis for spring is on tailoring and how to transmit this appreciation for tailored clothes to a new generation more prone to dressing down.
I saw most of the show depicted in the video live, via the brand’s TikTok platform last Sunday. In all of Rousteing’s Balmain shows that I have seen since his first, there is always that joy and celebration of fashion that is omnipresent. Whether one likes or dislikes his fashion vision, it is impossible to dismiss this optimism, this belief that somehow a dress or the right suit can make everything if not alright, all better.
Epilogue
It was a day of personal reflection, of how much fashion depends on how lives are lived, specifically the lives and experiences of the designers – how they see the world and the life of the brand that they built on their own, or one for which they are carrying the heritage.
From the beginning of Day 3 Paris Men’s Digital shows today, we saw the Chinese gold Olympic gymnast who transformed his dream into the largest athletic goods company in China to the story of Olivier Rousteing who defied all odds by taking over the creative reign of the Parisian couture house Balmain. Rousteing’s personal history is now woven into Balmain’s, and his creativity will lead the house into the future. There are the utterly powerful films from GMBH, perhaps the season’s most potent visual presentation, films that are conceived as direct personal visions of Benjamin and Serhat. We will remember those puppets attending a fashion show as well as a bear in a crochet suit giving gifts – we do so because they are part of the designers’ personal history.
Fashion, at least great fashion, isn’t just about nice clothes. It is also about biography, whether auto or co-written with others.