Jason Wu took his cue from the very different visions of women celebrated by photographers Helmut Newton and Lillian Bassman, and married them for his spring 2013 show.
Whilst Newton’s amazons were sleekly groomed and faultlessly dressed, they invariably exuded a highly eroticized charge, Lillian Bassman’s own impeccably elegant mid-century couture-clad mannequins were the acme of romanticism—especially after her signature darkroom manipulations that shrouded her photographic prints in misty and shimmering light and shadow effects.
(Those techniques were echoed in a subtle white-on-black flower print, and in the spangled starlight galaxy embroideries.)
Thus the sleekly marcel-waved hair and gleaming scarlet lips of Wu’s cabine (led by a golden Carolyn Murphy) were often veiled in net by hairstylist Odile Gilbert, and the powerful black leather pieces that opened the show were sliced with insets of point d’esprit or lace (some of it laser-cut from that same leather). There was an eighties flavor to the high-waisted pants and mid-thigh pencil skirts—while the tailored shorts gave some outfits the look of a saucy forties beach romper suit.
(The hatbox-shaped “Carolyn” purse, and a mini satchel in white leather and leopard also added retro appeal.)
Wu played with the time-honored conceit of underwear as outerwear, with corset-seamed dresses, and structured undergarments with a mid-century flavor revealed through diaphanous outer layers. A striking short evening dress was a swathe of biscuit jersey cleverly draped over a black leather girdle, and harnessed with fine leather straps played up the hard/soft dynamic—and those halters even suspended the skirts of Wu’s finale gowns, made from acres of drifting chiffon or tulle that barely veiled the shapely legs beneath.
Whilst Newton’s amazons were sleekly groomed and faultlessly dressed, they invariably exuded a highly eroticized charge, Lillian Bassman’s own impeccably elegant mid-century couture-clad mannequins were the acme of romanticism—especially after her signature darkroom manipulations that shrouded her photographic prints in misty and shimmering light and shadow effects.
(Those techniques were echoed in a subtle white-on-black flower print, and in the spangled starlight galaxy embroideries.)
Thus the sleekly marcel-waved hair and gleaming scarlet lips of Wu’s cabine (led by a golden Carolyn Murphy) were often veiled in net by hairstylist Odile Gilbert, and the powerful black leather pieces that opened the show were sliced with insets of point d’esprit or lace (some of it laser-cut from that same leather). There was an eighties flavor to the high-waisted pants and mid-thigh pencil skirts—while the tailored shorts gave some outfits the look of a saucy forties beach romper suit.
(The hatbox-shaped “Carolyn” purse, and a mini satchel in white leather and leopard also added retro appeal.)
Wu played with the time-honored conceit of underwear as outerwear, with corset-seamed dresses, and structured undergarments with a mid-century flavor revealed through diaphanous outer layers. A striking short evening dress was a swathe of biscuit jersey cleverly draped over a black leather girdle, and harnessed with fine leather straps played up the hard/soft dynamic—and those halters even suspended the skirts of Wu’s finale gowns, made from acres of drifting chiffon or tulle that barely veiled the shapely legs beneath.
via: vogue
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