The Tamesis
This season, Roksanda Ilincic has decided not to hold a fashion show, “but with the exciting news,” she said, “I’m opening a pop-up store on Sloane Street. Next to Chanel and Pucci. It’s great. And there’s a lot of space.”
I went to see her in a light-filled penthouse showroom next to the famous House Museum on Kingsland Road in East London, housed in a series of restored 18th-century almshouses. Clearly, this scene is inspiring. There, the rails are color-coded, from dusk green and bright black, to bright Peruvian pink, prune and light grey. Ilincic was moved by Gabriele Beverage, an artist who worked primarily in glass, wrapping sinuous tones of green and blue, orange and pink together, twisting them to create elegant attenuated forms, and Dragan Drobenjak, the first Serbian sculptor to graduate in the medium of glass.
She started developing the collection last July and expects it to be available in December. During the creative process, she became fascinated by Carlo Scarpa’s stunning mausoleum, the Tomba Brion, built between 1969 and 1978 in San Vito d’Altivole, against the backdrop of Italy’s Asolo Mountains. (Her own home has some Scapa feel, with raw concrete industrial ceilings and sleek walls in deep lilac and forest green). Philip Johnson said of Scarpa that he had the ability to “compose poetry out of the smallest stick or stone.” The Venetian-born architect created circular openings in the concrete walls inside (and outside) the building. The structure is Brutalist in style but dazzling with the play of light. “Everything — the ceiling, the floor — is magical,” Ilincic said. “They actually call it a sanctuary, too,” Ilincic said. “But I also love nature because obviously you have a pretty hard brutalist concrete and then this almost overgrown nature is taking over the concrete. This is in Italy, so obviously nature is so lush.”
She used Scarpa’s idea of circular doorways to cut out perfect circles in the back of her oversized, masculine jackets, so you’ll flash whatever you choose to wear underneath—a Howard Hodgkin-esque printed satin top, for example—or wear nothing at all if you see fit. The bag also follows this concept: two perfectly symmetrical brass rings carry a piece made of shredded brown leather. “I think we’re in a very interesting space,” she said. “We still need to dream… but the reality is very sad.”
Ilincic mainly works with two factories in Italy. She sometimes uses the “blankets” they produce, which are master prints that appear randomly in different colorways. The effect is pleasing. This season, one of the factories developed a lighter-colored organza seersucker, which she processed into magical colors. A dark copper brown is suitable for a draped short-sleeved top or a full-skirted evening gown, while a bright Inca pink is suitable for an evening gown with noticeable pleats in the front, even though it looks like a slim bodycon dress from the back.
“I wanted to bridge the gap between daywear and eveningwear and really focus on daywear this season and bring that into evening, so you can wear a day jacket over a really nice evening dress or pair it with tailored trousers for an exciting evening look,” she said.
A light gray (or dark green wool) jacket cut like a shirt with a buttoned triangular panel on one side that falls like a “gentle waterfall,” according to Ilincic, is often worn over cuffed trousers. Or, for an impromptu blend of day and evening, this “day” jacket can be worn languidly over a floor-length satin evening gown. The scarf worn through the jacket also adds a subtle touch. For Ilincic, the scarf can create a subtle contrast with a jacket, or it can be dramatic.
For evening wear, there was a bright pink satin sheath dress with a train artfully glued to an equally bright orange—Ilincic said the draping had a ’90s feel. Then came the sensational finish: a bright blue fitted taffeta bodice (bonded to a sharp lime green understated lining that just disappeared when you saw it), and then some 17 meters of blue taffeta pleated into a dozen or so panels, starting just below the waist and swinging out like a rolled-up umbrella. Sensational!
