By Marie Kelly
18th Oct 2019
18th Oct 2019
IMAGE Fashion Director Marie Kelly reflects on her favourite designers’ emerging AW19 trends
Far from putting the cat among the pigeons as he did last season with his Saint Laurent-like Celine catwalk show, Heidi Slimane’s AW19 collection for the Parisian fashion house had critics and customers purring with delight — and relief. Slimane has travelled the long road from pariah to prophet in six short months. His AW19 show was not just a stellar edit of covetable clothing, but a pin sharp picture of the emerging fashion mood.
Longevity, femininity, wearability, joy – these are the words women want to be associated with their wardrobes. From plaid culottes and pie-crust blouses to suede bombers and shearling coats, Celine was a celebration of grown-up style for the determined woman. This was “forever fashion” rather than a “one night only” affair.
Slimane delivered an updated version, not just of the Celine woman, but of modern femininity. Although the models had that same annihilating stare as his Saint Laurent women (it seared right through those black aviators) and hands stuffed so tightly in their pockets they looked positively p***ed off, there was a softness to this collection that couldn’t be extinguished by posture or demeanour and it came from the wonderfully artful mix of winter’s most tactile textures — tweed, wool, silk, leather, sheepskin – and silhouettes that were meltingly fluid; pleated skirts, oversized ponchos and extra-long capes had a swashbuckling appeal.
80s inspiration
In many instances, the outfits reminded me of my childhood TV style icon, Christine Cagney, of New York-based cop show Cagney & Lacey. As a child in the early eighties, she was the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. I envied her fluffy blonde bangs (although not her handgun; that was never my style).
I soaked up every outfit she wore in each episode and made mental notes of how she mixed up textures, styled neck scarves and bunched up the sleeves of sweaters around her elbows.
She could have been Slimane’s muse for this collection, the looks were so similar at times, but then he did draw deeply on the Celine archive, where he found the kinds of stalwart pieces (well-cut blazers, pleated skirts, silk blouses and sturdy boots) French women paid good money for 50 years ago. These were the anchors of Christine Cagney’s closet in the early eighties, and today, I find they’re the basis of mine.
Women never lose interest in items that work hard in their wardrobes.
That old cliché of looking back to move forward has worked a treat for Slimane. Similarly, Natacha Ramsay-Levi is reimagining the traditional codes of the Chloé house for its new customers.
The horse motifs and equestrian influences of old are emerging again but in different guises; a beautifully cut riding jacket in twill, a military topcoat in Prince of Wales check. Again, these are clothes made for women who need serviceable wardrobes but who refuse to sacrifice aesthetics to have it.
The Irish effect
An Irish heritage brand producing these same staunch pieces, enriched by its past but not defined by it, is Donegal label Magee1866. Punctuating the traditional fitted blazers in salt and pepper tweeds, the brand is known for are softer cuts and silhouettes; a raglan-sleeve coat with blanket-like weave – the kind of oversized throw-on that street style stars are famous for – a check trouser suit that’s cut like a man’s to flatter a woman, and merino knits backed with printed silk.
Brands with a history — and heart — are trusted by women looking for style and substance, so it’s wonderful to see future “heritage” brands emerging and thriving in this country, such as Wicklow-based label Four Threads.
No brand has a bigger heart than Richard Malone, the eponymous label of the Wexford-born designer who is carving out a successful niche for himself in London as the go-to designer for fashion-forward women with a social conscience.
Committed to sustainable practices and minimal waste (each dress in this collection was cut from just one metre of fabric), Malone served up a directional display of separates that embraced all of this season’s buzzwords – feminine, wearable, sustainable and fun.
Midi-length pencil skirts with side and front splits, which gave the models a lovely freedom of movement, came in shades of claret and oxblood. Paired with Malone’s unconventional tailoring, they painted a very modern picture of this season’s bourgeois woman.
What women love
While Slimane and Ramsay-Levi created items that will live in your wardrobe well into the future, Malone’s pieces have a past as well as a future. From recycled organic cotton jersey to dog beds (yes, really; for the fur stoles) he’s committed to repurposing and reusing, and to showing that beautiful things can be fabricated out of the ordinary and mundane.
It’s the antithesis of the stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap mentality. The variety of models on his runway also demonstrated beautifully how long these pieces will serve Malone’s customers, as models from 20-odd to 60-odd confidently walked his runway. Buy a Malone dress in your thirties and you’ll still be wearing it in your sixties, such is the “agelessness” of his aesthetic.
It would be impossible to talk about AW19’s fashion mood without acknowledging the impact Victoria Beckham has had and continues to have on what women wear. Once again this season, her presentation was a colourful, beautifully tailored mix of interchangeable separates and easy-to-wear dresses that you’ll pull out year after year.
“Proper but not prim” is how the designer described her customer. If the Celine collection has too much attitude for you and Malone’s too much edge, then Beckham’s is that perfect marriage of modernity and femininity without any tricks or party games. Just great clothes made by a woman to be worn by women.
This article originally appeared in the October edition of IMAGE Magazine.
Images: Jason Lloyd-Evans
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