Girlish gingham was slit, crisp striped cotton was twisted, and necklines were slashed. Latticed leather pieces in ladylike shapes like pencil skirts contributed to the sense of a bourgeois woman on the edge. As Joseph told us, “It started with Rosemary’s Baby and Barry Lyndon. That sort of narrative that felt innocent and naive and evolved into something quite perverse – it was that journey I was interested in.”
That journey was present throughout the tense, romantic show, as well as in the detail of each carefully crafted piece. “There were the ginghams of the beginning that were quite girlish, but that are torn apart and knotted back together. That idea of subverting something quite girly into something very grown-up and very sexual was super interesting,” he explained. A pale-blue gingham shirtdress with slashed seams and visible black panties perfectly highlighted that girly/grown-up divide.
From argyle for autumn/winter 11 to oxford shirting for spring/summer 13, experimentation with classic fabrics has often been a game for Altuzarra. This season was all about that gingham, working it into cloquet (textured) fabrics, as well as a wrinkled viscose. “It was the idea of taking gingham somewhere else other than regular cotton shirting,” he added.
As for the beauty, dream-team Odile Gilbert and makeup artist Tom Pecheux created a horror-movie ice princess moment, complete with a heart-shaped hairspray-ed chignon and pastel pink lips. As Joseph described it, the look was “so polished it became a bit sinister,” an apt encapsulation of the show at large.
Joseph’s fan base, the stripped-down chic women such as his stylists Vanessa Traina and Mélanie Huynh, have much to love in this collection. The designer thinks deeply about how his clothing works in the real world. “The show is a marketing tool. It’s a way of expressing a point of view, but I don’t think of it as the end-all be-all of my work. I really do think about who is going to be wearing this, and where they’re going to be wearing it.” So, who? “Women who are in touch with their bodies, their sexualities,” he said. “A lot of the pieces are very wearable. Those gingham shirts with a pair of jeans. Not to go full on commercial, but that’s a great little piece.” With the designer’s capsule collection for Target launching on September 14th, “full-on commercial” is very much on his mind. And the Altuzarra woman will be coming a bit closer to home.
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Harry Carr