It is easy to say, that as my first experience of playing witness to a Walter Van Beirendonck show, I was transferred into a world that challenged the 21st century ready-to-wear design aesthetics of today’s fashion landscape. Through a collision of technical pattern structure, to tailoring and attention to fit and cut, Walter Van Beirendonck’s spring/summer 18 collection revealed a playful scene of intellect, of knowledge of colliding craftsmanship and style, awareness and traditional, of offering maturity and playfulness through one singular collection. Beirendonck’s “Owls Whisper” communicated the need for fashion to excite yet still remain commercial, to work with the modern fashion-conscious client, but also create a story and a portal to a story of imagination.
“Owls Whisper” captured the innocence of childhood and noted today’s gender boundaries that are often explored through fashion – Beirendonck offered the very necessity of how fashion can be used to represent an identity but acknowledged his skill of being a wearable designer. Working with playful tones of acid green, canary yellow, silver, white, ultra-marine blue, tangerine orange and sky blue, that collided with mature tailored fabrication against patch work aesthetics, Beirendonck explored a juxtaposition between his playful designer DNA and mature design integrity, placing himself yet again as one within the league of designers who truly represent the art and training of fashion design.
Words: Jasmine Banbury
Photographer: Alexis Negrin
