The season’s most uproarious show and collection was the cool composite collage collection by Kidsuper, where Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho modeled to deafening applause.
The star of the last Brazilian team to win a World Cup, in Japan in 2002, Ronaldinho beamed with a beatific smile as he appeared in a giant faux-fur coat.
Later, he took his bow with Colm Dillane, the founder and designer of Kidsuper, who recounted the last-minute scramble to get Ronaldinho ready even as he walked along the catwalk.
In a Paris menswear season signified by the emergence of a series of competing cult-followings of Indie designers – like Egonlab or Sean Suen, to name a few – this felt like the most passionate tribe.
Kindsuper’s attraction? Dynamic street couture panache – like the ecru sheepskin coat with cut-outs of New York brownstones or anatomical sketches; or the outlandish zoot suits in composite sketches of saints and sinners.
All in a show opened by a pirouetting classical ballet dancer wearing Kidsuper’s ragged edged and ruffled tunic. Followed by a weeping widow in acres of all black tulle.
Dillane is possibly best known for his one season pinch-hit at Louis Vuitton one year ago, in a brief interregnum between Virgil Abloh and Pharrell Williams. And he clearly picked up a lot of ideas and techniques from that the LV experience, throwing in some great multi-collage handbags and man bags.
And in a collection that referenced strings, the key moment was when a model in a white corduroy suit marched the length of the catwalk as his black knit sweater tied to the backstage was gradually pulled apart.
“We must have tried that a hundred times, and that was the first time it worked. Even the trial run today didn’t happen properly,” laughed Dillane, the son of an Irishman who emigrated from the small town of Rathdowney.
So, even if the styling was a wee bit formulaic, the tailoring traditional and the finish rugged, this was still a great show. And confirmation
Dillane and Kidsuper will be a force to be reckoned with in future. Tellingly, Michael Burke, the Vuitton CEO who hired Dillane for his LV season, and the man who will take over LVMH’s Fashion Group on Feb. 1, was the first back to congratulate Colm. Talk about an Irish fashion Murphy’osa.
A Brooklyn raised creator, Dillane is admired for the collage paintings he creates for each show; like the brilliant downtown artist coat which even carried his own signature.
Backstage, his fans and followers all raised glasses of champagne in his honor, chanting his name. This is one designer who does not have one shy bone in his body. One day before – in the same building – the legendary Japanese creator Rei Kawakubo didn’t say a single word to editors or critics who saluted her post show.
Dillane, by contrast, took the microphone again, and recounted: “Ronaldinho only got here two hours before the show, but we still brought if off!”
Leading to an explosion of cheering from his crew, singing in unison, ‘Ole! Ole! Ole!’
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