The Eye

by Nathan Williams

  When different disciplines meet, it creates this amazing unpredictability.

  DISOBEDIENT BODIES

  Blending his long-standing passion for modern art and his creative preoccupation with human form, Anderson curated the groundbreaking 2017 exhibition Disobedient Bodies at The Hepworth Wakefield. The sprawling show was a uniquely personal vision, aiming to place art in direct dialogue with fashion: figurative sculptures by artists including Jean Arp, Sarah Lucas, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth in conversation with fashion pieces by Christian Dior, Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, Helmut Lang and Jean-Paul Gaultier. “This is a rare and exciting opportunity for me to bring together some of the works of art and fashion that long inspired my own creative work,” Anderson enthused, “and to see what happens when these objects rub up against each other.” Boldly exploring gender, identity and the body, the exhibition was widely praised for recontextualizing both fashion and figurative art as potent conduits for new ideas.

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  Ossendrijver has dressed everyone from Kanye and Jay-Z to Orlando Bloom and David Beckham.

  Lucas Ossendrijver

  Lanvin

  Discussing his longevity at Lanvin, the Dutch designer says 11 years in fashion amounts to three lifetimes in human years. “Knowing what the turnover is like at design houses,” he told The Telegraph last year, “I never thought I would stay so long.”

  “I love everything that has to do with construction,” designer Lucas Ossendrijver declares. The longtime head of menswear at Lanvin is not a man to design with pencil and paper but rather to build as an architect might, in three dimensions. It’s a passion that started well before an interest in clothing. Growing up, Ossendrijver had a father who ran a construction company in a rural town 30 miles south of Amsterdam; the designer’s playthings were wood and tools, crafting his pastime. Today, the 48-year-old still puts his hands to work.

  He just rebuilt a wooden bench, in fact. It took 10 days to fix and reassemble, but it’s sturdier and more beautiful than ever, according to the designer. He beams, amused with himself.

  “Fashion for me is about making things—being creative and doing things with your hands,” says the low-key, lanky Dutchman with a moon of sandy hair. To devise the clothing of his métier, he begins by dismantling an existing garment, unraveling the seams of a vintage piece, perhaps, or something from one of his previous collections. “I’m just looking for new technical solutions to a lot of problems,” he says. ”That’s basically the process of creating fashion.” Ossendrijver reconfigures the clothes, shifting them and pinning them on a mannequin until he’s satisfied and a toile pattern can be made to produce the garment in its ultimate fabric. He draws the final design only when the piece is complete, he says, a frill “just for the sales catalog.”

  “With menswear, it’s all about construction,” he says. “It’s all about what’s on the inside.” Sculpting and shaping the materials in three dimensions, Ossendrijver is the rare designer who does not start by conjuring a style or type of man he’s designing for. Rather, his starting point is the clothing itself, some classic menswear staple or another. He will study it, taking out the stitching to peer into its innards and find ways to adjust the tailoring, creating through his very shapes something that perfectly defines the modern man: slim, rigorously precise, but effortless and multivalent, simultaneously formal and casual. He has devised sneakers and sportswear that pair perfectly with suits, for example, and suits relaxed enough to couple with T-shirts. It’s a successfully unstudied style now enshrined in the canon of contemporary menswear.

  Part of the charm is a circumscribed dishevelment that Ossendrijver injects into his designs—a few real-life effects like creases and pleats pressed into the clean shapes that soften the garb and provide “fun surprises for the wearer,” he says. “At the runway show, everything goes by so quickly that you don’t perceive these little flourishes, but fashion is about giving pleasure, so you need to create things to discover in the details.”

  Lanvin is Paris’ oldest surviving fashion house; its town house of offices faces the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré flagship store that has remained open since Jeanne Lanvin launched the brand back in 1889. In this century, Lanvin has reblossomed as a leading style maison under the creative direction of Alber Elbaz, who brought Ossendrijver on board to head menswear in 2005. After a long, lauded run, Elbaz was suddenly and controversially fired in 2015, plunging the brand into chaos, but Ossendrijver’s department has endured peacefully, and the two designers remain close friends. “It’s such a journey we went through together,” he says. “But I felt ready to step out on my own and do things with my team, so my way of working hasn’t changed.” In fact, his steadfast engineer’s approach to fashion has managed to withstand the storms of a capricious industry, and his enthusiasm remains intact. “The chaos makes me more sure,” he says. “You just learn to trust your intuition even more.”

  I never feel blasé. Everything is always evolving.

  It takes a certain talent to thrive amid tumult, but Ossendrijver seems completely consumed by the task, as evident by the four collections he produces a year. (Until 2013, the standard was a collection for spring and one for fall, but twice yearly “pre-collections” have since been added to the schedule at Lanvin and most major brands.) “I never feel blasé,” he says. “Everything is always evolving. If I presented a collection two days after the show, it would probably be different already.”

  “People think fashion is about trying to realize an idea,” he says, “but the idea that I start with is almost never what’s going to end up on the runway. There’s a whole process of input from the team.” Ossendrijver is both the first and final voice in the studio, of course, but he still sees designing as a group activity, one that flourishes thanks to the strong opinions of his fellow designers, who infuse his initial concepts with new directions.

  “Designing is about letting go of preconceived concepts,” Ossendrijver says, his voice firming up with conviction. “The most important thing is the creativity, to always keep pushing forward.” *

  FASHION ARCHIVE

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  Dior revolutionized postwar fashion in 1947 with his New Look style, iconic for its floral patterns.

  1905–1957

  CHRISTIAN DIOR

  Christian Dior opened his eponymous haute couture house in Paris in October 1946 with one clear intention: to encourage women to experience joy and beauty again after the strife of World War II. At the time, he was 41 years old and had gained extensive experience in dressmaking, having worked at the ateliers of Robert Piquet and Lucien Lelong. Yet establishing his own label wasn’t a lifelong ambition. In fact, as a child growing up in the popular French seaside town of Granville, Dior dreamed of becoming an architect. Perhaps this explains his fixation on shape, structure and form, which became an intrinsic part of his vision from the start.¶ The word “revelation” is frequently used in fashion today, but in the case of Dior’s couture debut on February 12, 1947, it’s appropriate. Titled “Corolle,” the collection comprised soft-shouldered dresses and jackets with waspy waists and rounded hips, in addition to full, shin-grazing skirts. The proportions were so pointedly feminine for the period that editor Carmel Snow famously remarked that Dior had pioneered a completely “new look”—a phrase that came to define the line.¶ This elegant New Look instantly appealed to women whose wardrobes had been stifled by wartime rationing, and it wasn’t long before starlets such as Rita Hayworth and Margot Fonteyn came calling. In a matter of months, Dior had inadvertently put Paris at the epicenter of high fashion. Over the next decade, he continued to champion new silhouettes that celebrated the female form and embodied the spirit of the time. Hallmarks included the curvaceous oval dresses of Spring/Summer ’51, the understated yet glamorous H-line designs of Autumn/Winter ’54 and the playful A-line skirts that became the focal point of his Spring/Summer ’55 show.¶ D
ior passed away unexpectedly just two years later at the pinnacle of his power. He left a short-lived but meteoric legacy that not only changed the face of fashion but also helped commercialize Parisian style worldwide. His maison and his inimitable sensibility continue to thrive today.*

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  Growing up in Granville, Normandy, Dior dreamed of studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but his parents refused to send him.

  1922–present

  PIERRE CARDIN

  What will the people of tomorrow want to wear? That was the question posed by Pierre Cardin in 1950, when he left his position as a tailor at Christian Dior to launch his namesake label. Though the Italian-born, Paris-based talent had enjoyed considerable training as a couturier, he frequently expressed his unease at working within such an elitist sphere. After opening an atelier of his own, he quickly established himself by turning out collarless menswear suits and jackets, which retained a casual, modern feel despite their couture-like construction.¶ Before long, he turned his attention to designing women’s ready-to-wear, which outraged haute couture’s ruling body, the Chambre Syndicale. In stark contrast to the hyperfeminine, finely tailored looks he helped hone at Dior, Cardin’s aesthetic was far more whimsical and revealed his interest in Googie architecture—radical, geometric buildings inspired by the space age. In 1954, for example, he presented the bubble dress, which sported a narrow waist and a skirt that resembled the namesake. His 1958 balloon-shaped skirt and stark, short tunics with satellite sleeves orbited his collections throughout the ’60s and further affirmed his status as fashion’s great futurist.¶ He also had the foresight to design unisex clothes—one small step for Cardin, one giant leap for fashion. His landmark “Cosmos” collection in 1964 consisted of vibrant tunics with coordinating tights and slick plastic visors. Additional breakthroughs included his 1969 experimental circular raincoats, which were cut from techno fabric, his maxi-coat and miniskirt combination and his 1971 offbeat felt envelope hats. Unlike many brands of the time, Cardin’s collections sold widely in department stores across the US, UK and Japan.¶ In the latter part of his career, Cardin pioneered the idea of brand licensing, lending his name to a multitude of products including furniture, sunglasses, perfume, mattresses and even frying pans. Today, in his late 90s, Cardin continues to seek out new opportunities that he believes will make his brand truly global.*

  Cardin has been a fashion industry staple for over seven decades. As is often noted, his eponymous label has been for sale for a quarter of a century, with a standing price starting at $1 billion and no room for negotiation. The 95-year-old designer told The Business of Fashion, “If you don’t have the money, then don’t buy it —nobody’s forcing you to. I can afford to die without selling it.”

  1883–1971

  COCO CHANEL

  The course of 20th-century fashion would have been entirely different if Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel hadn’t intervened. Driven by the need to liberate women from the constraints of their whaleboned corsets and thigh-pinching garters, the French-born designer created an entirely new look, informed by men’s clothing (which she herself wore) and leisurewear. Her creations freed the body rather than dominated it, and consisted of long-line cardigans, fluid blouses and drop-waist dresses in soft, comfortable fabrications such as jersey—which she obtained the sole rights to produce in 1916.¶ Throughout the 1920s, Chanel introduced countless style staples including the little black dress, the cloche hat, the masculine blazer (for women) and costume jewelry: a dazzling, cost-effective solution to accessorizing. She also conceived her first perfume, Chanel No.5, a simple but sensual scent that spoke to the spirited women who appreciated her modern philosophy. Chanel’s golden era, however, proved to be the 1930s, thanks to the introduction of her black quilted leather 2.55 and Timeless CC bags, in addition to the Breton jumper, which was made to be worn with loosely tapered trousers. Since her death in 1971, Maison Chanel has been helmed by Karl Lagerfeld and continues to prosper.*

  1934–present

  MARY QUANT

  Dame Mary Quant opened her first fashion boutique, Bazaar, above a restaurant run by her husband, Alexander Plunkett-Greene, on King’s Road in the heart of London’s Chelsea district. It was 1955, and Britain was on the cusp of a cultural revolution. As a self-taught designer, Quant threw caution to the wind and filled her shop with clothes that she was unable to find elsewhere. Unlike the structured pieces still favored by couturiers at the time, her designs were simple, youthful and strikingly modern—feeding off the mod style and beatnik-chic of the dancers, socialites and musicians who frequented the SW3 neighborhood.¶ Quant’s optimistic and accessible collections soared in popularity, and her aesthetic became as synonymous with the swinging sixties as The Beatles, Woodstock or Andy Warhol. Signature Mary Quant styles included abbreviated tunic dresses, wet-look PVC swing jackets, Baker Boy hats, wide-leg trousers with matching waistcoats, the skinny rib sweater—and, of course, the miniskirt. Capitalizing on the success of her clothing label, Quant also developed a highly successful cosmetics line before introducing swimwear, hosiery, jewelry and wallpaper collections during the early 1970s. Her empire continues to flourish in Japan.*

  1927–2018

  HUBERt DE GIVENCHY

  Hubert de Givenchy was a purveyor of subtle elegance. Born in Beauvais, France, the designer was fascinated with clothes throughout his childhood and spent hours sifting through his grandfather’s wardrobe. At 17, he enrolled in Paris’ prestigious École de Beaux-Arts and, while studying, began working for the house of Elsa Schiaparelli, eventually becoming the artistic director of its Place Vendôme boutique.¶ Givenchy opened his namesake atelier in 1952. His debut collection—with elegant blouses and shapely skirts—was influenced by his young muse, Bettina Graziani, and the architectural aesthetic of his idol, Cristóbal Balenciaga. In the years that followed, Givenchy continued to focus on achieving purity of line. He became closely associated with actress Audrey Hepburn, with whom he formed a close friendship after collaborating on both her personal ensembles and cinematic repertoire—including Sabrina, Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.¶ Arguably Givenchy’s most revolutionary design is the sack dress. The billowing button-front piece rejected the strict silhouettes of the 1950s and proposed an easy but enigmatic new shape. During the ’60s, he also championed the thigh-high hemline, encouraging women to bare their legs for a day. Givenchy eventually sold his brand to luxury conglomerate LVMH in 1988, before retiring from fashion in 1995.*

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  Famously dressed in his white lab coat, the over-six-foot-tall designer was known for his height and elegance. Ennobled in 1713, his family traces its roots back to Venice.

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  Givenchy frequently dedicated sketches to his muse Audrey Hepburn throughout their 40-year relationship. Drawings of his most famous designs and others never before seen were released in the 2014 book To Audrey with Love.

  1932–1990

  Roy Halston Frowick

  Roy Halston Frowick, best known as Halston, was the undisputed doyen of 1970s disco fashion. But before he became recognized for designing simple, barely-there dresses that looked best under the lights of a disco ball, he made hats. Halston had an affinity for millinery from the age of seven. By the time he moved from his native Iowa to New York in 1958, he was 26 and already a well-known milliner. His big break came when he crafted the pillbox hat that Jackie Kennedy wore to her husband’s presidential inauguration.¶ Keen to exploit his newfound press attention, Halston turned his hand to clothes and launched his ready-to-wear line in 1968, aiming to create pieces that women could “breathe in, work in, play in.” He spun supple, feel-good fabrics such as jersey, silk and synthetic suede into jumpsuits, asymmetric gowns and shirtdresses. At his height, Halston’s sultry garb became the uniform of ’70s tastemakers such as Anjelica Huston and Liza Minnelli, who, like the designer himself, were regulars at the infamous Studio 54.¶ For every high com
es a low, and unfortunately for Halston, the ’80s were less kind. In a series of buyouts, the popular brand was snapped up by Revlon and was officially discontinued in 1990. Halston passed away from AIDS-related complications that same year.*

  1935–2017

  Azzedine Alaïa

  “For me, fashion is the body,” said Azzedine Alaïa in 1982. Indeed, the self-taught Tunisian designer, affectionately dubbed “the king of cling,” built his entire career on enhancing the female form. Rather than using stiff corseting, horsehair padding or restrictive tailoring, Alaïa’s designs consisted of only seams, supple leather and fine stretch jersey that kissed curves and highlighted a carnal, muscular physique. His clothes were erotic but never exploitative—as evidenced by his seasonal shows, where models strode down the runway like empowered warriors, as opposed to blank waifs.¶ Alaïa opened his eponymous maison in Paris in 1979, having been a best-kept secret among the crème de la crème of French society for many years already. His sophisticated, body-conscious brand skyrocketed during the 1980s and came to define the decade, championed by women such as Cindy Crawford, Madonna, Grace Jones and his close friend and muse, Naomi Campbell.¶ Though his aesthetic fell out of favor during the late ’90s, he remained true to his signature look and focused on crafting timeless pieces for private clients and pop culture icons from around the world. Alaïa continued to work at his own pace until his death in 2017.*