Marios Schwab F/W 12.13 London

[christian zh]

-style.com

 

[christian zh]

-style.com

 

[christian zh]

-style.com

 

[christian zh]

-style.com

 

[Fiercification]

Such a good collection. I'm not usually a fan of his, but this was so refined, retaining its edge thanks to the textures of the coats and lace work.

 

[christian zh]

-style.com

 

[Psylocke]

I liked this, too. Very pretty collection. All the gowns are stunning and I love all the delicate-looking dresses. What's that pvc-like fabric called that he always uses? It makes those lace designs look so nicely structured and I like how it gives that non-flowing, creasing effect. The color palette is great, too.

 

[LolaSvelt]

Started off incredibly well but then descended into Christopher Kane-wannabe territory at the end.

 

[WilhelmF]

I see micro-ideas that don't relate to each other but look great nonetheless. Beautiful collection.

 

[Hazel]

I like it. Some of the dresses are really great, especially the lacy ones, but the gowns are not my cup of tea so to say.

 

[liberty33r1b]

London is really on a roll this season! what a sophisticated collection

 

[juanpyx]

Started off incredibly well but then descended into Christopher Kane-wannabe territory at the end.

I thought that too

 

[Pradable]

 

[Tentacl Ventricl]

Not to draw any particular conclusion here but just to push at the inspirations.

First ''Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor'' (1901-2). Seen as the most conventional symphony of an unconventional composer, it's 4th movement makes an uncanny return in opening and closing Visconti's film Death in Venice (1971 but set in 1911). Itself a reworking of Thomas Mann's novella of the same title (1912), a tale of not even a doomed romance, more an unnoticed infatuated gaze of a dying author (composer in Visconti's reworking) upon a beautiful youth. Mahler's 4th movement of the 5th opens and closes Schwab's show soundtrack.

Second ''The Portrait of a Lady''. We're probably to think of the Henry James novel (1881) which is held to close a phase in James's ouevre and which undermines the conventions of it's time in it's treatment of sexual matters. A tale of a doomed romance in the sense of a transatlantic mismatched marriage, it is also revisited in TS Eliot's poem of the same name (1915) both of which portray upper class society as treacherous, empty and characterised by suffering.

Thirdly ''Eau de Nil'' the bluey yellow green colour which does appear in the collection and which has associations with art nouveau. It's also the title of the first french sound film (1928) but which in fact marks the end of an era in French film production with both Gaumont and Pathe retiring shortly after and the baton passing to Hollywood and the start of it's golden age.

Lives and era's passing, challenging convention, doomed romances, uncanny returns, reworkings across literature, film, poetry and music. And bodies of water - Eau de Nil being of course 'water of the Nile'; Venice; the Atlantic. We might also think of Charon the ferryman of the dead from Greek mythology. And, this season, any references to deaths/new beginnings are bound to call to mind the winter solstice and Mayan prophecy.

Latterly, post show, Schwab also raises Dietrich; that the collection has a biomorphic intent - fusion of garment and dermis; a vison of woman as window. Or perhaps as screen, I might venture to add.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

^ I like the water reference, and its link to Charon, which connects endings and beginnings to forgetting and remembering too (like the uncanny, familiar but not quite?), i.e., needing to drink the water of Lethe to forget the old life and move into the new: perhaps this recalls those nostalgic references in the collection to noir-ish femme fatales of the screen, Dietrich-like indeed. A wistful collection, pretty, mysterious and maybe even dangerous (?) at once.

 

[Tentacl Ventricl]

^ Yes and despite all the historical referencing one of the aspects of the collection which saves it from being overly antiquarian are the sparkly or liquid sheens of Marios's fabrication. Shine is seemingly a major trend of course and one which links all those aquatic references of last season submerged as they are in nature and the elemental with a more machinic object fetishism. Bodies of water as romantic, alluring, primordial but also potentially deadly. Like mythological sirens luring sailors to their deaths. Screen sirens. Screens themselves as having liquid properties. The body (or garment) itself as a window. Or screen.

The eveningwear in particular has the feel of waves breaking over the body. Perhaps a further association of water rushing or rippling out in cascades from a central point akin to jouissance.

 

[TianSoFine]

I really adore all the details. This is definitely a memorable collection of this season for me.