Six years is a lifetime in fashion, but the Philo effect appears undiminished. Phoebe Philo has opted out of the runway, at least for the time being, and the move is already influencing other designers. At recent studio visits, more than one industry name alluded to her convention-busting decision with a wistful tone in their voice. The pressures of constant creative renewal, it seems, are as real as the financial ones that have kept others off the show schedule this season.
But Philo isn’t out of the fashion month conversation, even though she wasn’t on any official calendar. The brand has released the first delivery of its second edit today, 48 hours after the Paris powerhouses Chanel and Louis Vuitton put on their fall shows, with their audiences in the thousands. Even if we’re talking about two different seasons—Philo’s being see-now, buy-now, and the show that just wrapped being fall 2024—the timing doesn’t seem like a coincidence.
Edit two, a press release reveals, consists of 60 new styles that will sit alongside a selection of items from edit one. Looking at it like a coda, it confirms a few things about fashion—and the wider world—today. Soft power is in, and hard power is out; the rounded ’80s shoulders she introduced last fall are a big thing across the industry and in this offering. Similarly, we’re looking for ways to feel good, as in palpably, physically good. Earthy, extreme textures such as Philo’s hand-combed embroidered coat in candy floss pink and her fringed high heeled mule with tassels that reach to the floor are like tactile ASMR. The silk satin pillow scarves are bound to connect too. On the flip side, edit two’s dropped waist utility vest and jacket broadcast a no-nonsense, can-do spirit, which feels like another kind of necessity for making it in 2024. Ditto the motocross trousers.
Sandra Hüller, the Oscar nominated star of Anatomy of a Fall, fronts the campaign, a first for the German actress. Which makes me wonder: Will Hüller wear Phoebe Philo to the Academy Awards on Sunday? The label has made no indication it’s pursuing a red carpet strategy, in fact it may be the only high fashion company not to send a celebrity credit PR blast in 2024 (my colleagues’ inboxes thank her). This is yet another way Philo is rewriting the luxury brand rule book, but it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like to see what the her le smoking looks like, or the enigmatic Hüller in it.
