The moment this Kiko Kostadinov collectsion landed in front of the 15-strong flock of runway photographers at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers this afternoon, a creative migratory flight of fashion reached its apex. It took off many months ago from the chillier climes of Wood Green, North London. There the Fanning sisters observed a group of birdwatchers one day as they were en route to the studio. The apparatus of observation, all lenses, Gore-tex and pockets, struck the sisters as a form of plumage in itself. Said Laura: “So we started thinking about both sides of the coin.”
The runway was soundracked by birdsong and furnished with a human sized “nestbox” by sculptor Oscar Tuazon that also resembled a birdwatcher’s hide. The women who emerged from it were equipped not only to negotiate the gaze of others, but also to impose their own. “We were maybe thinking about the watchers and the watched,” said Deanna.
A black suit with popper-adjustable legs and an array of pockets on its jacket was cut in a matte, light-repelling black washed cotton and teamed with an inscrutable dark-lensed wraparound eyewear style from a new collaboration with Oakley. Immediately after came a one-shouldered drape-detail evening dress in pink iridescent satin accessories and hair decoration that echoed the face-framing plumage of a barn owl.
Feather patterns were incorporated into forest hued intarsias to create a double camouflage in boxily detailed outerwear. Space-dyed hosiery in complex colorways and aigrette plumes of feather detail added further visual richness. Banks of fringing were cut into the chest and shoulders and front of knitwear sweaters and shorts to create the effect of adolescent pin feathers. Eggily ovoid down-filled button-up mega-gilets and satin-lined wool trenches with hyper-emphasized gun flaps and pockets were garments to nest within.
Shoes included drawstring cinched boots in Italian leather that were Fanning riffs on specialist birding footwear, and pumps cut in brown and black washed leather tinted with perspex. There were new editions of the brand’s ongoing Asics tabi collaboration in more handsomely complex colorways that they’d designed to look formal from the front and sporty at the back. The Oakley collab also included some very owlish hypersized goggle shades.
Some of the models wore jewelry by Bangkok’s Patcharapiva that included egg shaped pendants engraved with lines by Sylvia Plath: “I am not mystical: it is not as if I thought it had a spirit. It is simply in its element.” Offered Deanna: “I think that really sums up living in the moment and what we were trying to feel like when we started this collectsion.”
