Capsule #69 ft. Amy Beecham

Hiii everyone,

Here we are, the final fashion week roundup of the season. So much content from Paris yet it’s just a few days later and I’m already wondering which of it will actually stick. Let’s see! I’ve picked out the big conversations and some hidden gems for you.

Amy Beecham is also here to share her Hot & Not, and there are a bunch of recs for your weekend. I have to give an extra upvote for the M&S show — if you also comfort watch terrestrial TV you are in for a treat.

Have a great weekend,

Holly x

10 Moments from Paris Fashion Week

We made it… Fashion month is done… I will say I am ready to consume slightly less content for a bit. Fashion weeks remind you that scope of this industry is huge, and the media swell around it even larger. After some good feedback from last week’s issue, today I’m back with a Paris roundup to finish our September. As they say in the podcast world, let’s get into it…

1) The waist is the main character

That’s if you’re asking Mügler or Schiaparelli. Sometimes you watch a bunch of fashion shows and come to the realisation that one of fashion’s greatest aims has been the same for centuries - to accentuate women’s best features. The take home — corset tops are still a thing, and a blazer with a fitted waist might also be a good investment if you’re that way inclined.

2) Spring was found

By Chloé. After the Milan shows we felt lacking in that spring optimism, and then the Chloé show came and filled that gap, building on the joyful ‘70s aesthetics from last season. Lace bloomers with utility jackets for balance, baby doll dresses, big sunnies, and fabrics made to catch the May breeze.

If that pinky purple dress is piquing your interest, also have a look at these Isabel Marant SS25 designs.

3) The Ganni secret worth knowing

One of the most anticipated moments this PFW was the Ganni show - after a two year break, the brand has graduated from Copenhagen Fashion Week to show with the big leagues in Paris. There were some Ganni mainstays: tailoring with a twist, ruching, statement boots. Lots of the looks were styled with a necktie, which I think we’ll see more of IRL as a result, and the big bags got a lot of love online.

The secret worth knowing is that, in keeping with their ethos of supporting talent, Ganni invited two emerging designers, Nicklas Skovgaard and Claire Sullivan to design garments made using materials from Ganni’s Fabrics of the Future sustainability initiative. Skovgaard presented a chocolate brown party made from OleatexTM, a material made using Biotex, which is derived from olive oil production waste in Turkey, and Sullivan made a dress featuring sports jerseys made of Cycora, a polyester material made directly from textile waste.

What a cool thing, to move your brand to Paris, while retaining it’s everyday ‘Ganni Girl’ spirit as opposed to going mega luxury, and using that debut to showcase emerging talent using fabrics we need to give more consideration to. It’s possible…

4) Another Danish win

Cecilie Bahnsen, a brand known for ethereal fabrics and romantic silhouettes, made a turn towards the practical. Her SS25 collection was inspired by mountains and climbing — artist Takashi Homma’s photographs of the mountains around Tokyo were projected onto the walls, backpacks and duffel bags were made in partnership with The North Face, and Bahnsen recruited three professional rock climbers to walk the runway. Alongside the classic whimsical pieces and pouffy silhouettes, we saw drawstrings and buckles and zips. I’m biased towards functional pieces, they feel like a vote of confidence for our ability to Get Out And Do Things.

5) The trendiest people on your feeds will be influenced by…

Conner Ives. The New York-born, London-based designer’s latest collection looks thrown together and thrifted, in the best possible way. The type of pieces and styling that delight you, but are hard to come up with yourself because they’re just slightly off-beat.

In his own words: “Everything is kind of an assemblage of different centuries and different dress codes and different cultures coming together, which I think also reflects that sense of American mythmaking at play. This idea that these things could be constantly taken apart and collaged back together—that you could take a bustle and put it on a polo shirt.” True true true, but there’s a skill to pulling off a mismatched look and this collection can be your guide.

6) And also these Miu Miu flourishes

The Miu Miu SS25 show made headlines for the many famous faces both on the runway and attending the show, but the clothes themselves weren’t revolutionary. What we will take-home is the quirky embellishments I’m sure we’ll see replicated by trendy people. The fingerless cotton opera gloves with an arm belt bracelet. Leg warmers, and the extremely cute toeless socks (is that a thing?) to add an extra band of colour and texture to slip on sandals. And the wrap around tops, layered and tied together in a way I’ve not seen before but immediately feels like a thing.

7) The top buttons done, bottom buttons open is still a thing

And never looking better than on these Loewe looks.

We also saw this sculpted, fabric-caught-in-the-wind effect at Victoria Beckham, whose show felt ambitious, Schiaparelli-inspired, and just really fun.

8) McQueen gowns

Seán McGirr’s second collection for Alexander McQueen got a way better reception than the first. There was a bunch of tailoring which didn’t leave as much of a mark for me, but I think we’ll see some of these gowns on the red carpet during awards season.

9) Valentino revamp

Another big Paris talking point was Alessandro Michele’s (formerly Gucci) first collection for Valentino. It prompted a discussion about what brand identity means, versus the taste and preferences of a creative director, since a bunch of people thought the collection looked like Gucci. That’s just his style, people commented back. It was quintessential Michele - maximalism, ruffles, headwear - a world of characters who are hard to imitate. If you take one thing away, let it be that patterned and colourful tights will be in for a while longer.

Also look at Dolman Domingo’s excellent look for the show. 🥲

10) Coperni

We don’t usually put ‘Disney adult’ and ‘high fashion’ in the same sentence, but Coperni hosted their Disney-inspired collection at Disneyland Paris this week, so here we are. Those shoes from last week were a clue, and what followed was a collection with fairytale motifs. Coperni gimmicks aren’t for everyone, but this show was not as cheesy as this intro would make you believe. The Cinderella castle was actually a great backdrop, and the vintage style t-shirt layering felt closer to how people wear and interact with Disney today. (Some gossip: Apparently someone from the brand bought the blue vintage t-shirt off Vinted recently, and tried to lowball the price.)

Closing the show with Kylie Jenner in a gown was Coperni’s route to winning fashion week on virality, and they succeeded. But this was a classically divisive fashion moment: the “in the know” crowd thought it was a (very expensive) cheap win to tap one of the most famous women in the world to lift the profile of the collection, and on the flip side, such a move got the masses talking about the brand, and per @databutmakeitfashion, raised their popularity by 151% in a sentiment analysis.

And finally…

Other news from the Capsule universe this week:

• The mothers of Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Travis Kelce and Selena Gomez are on the cover of Glamour

• We’re in a big period of creative director musical chairs: Hedi Slimane left Celine, there’s a vacancies at Chanel, Dries Van Noten and Alberta Ferretti, some people think Jacquemus could move, others think Jonathan Anderson is headed for Dior, and a lot of people wonder why so many of the top dogs are white men

• Everything from Molly Mae’s clothing brand maebe sold out in 24 minutes. See what people bought

• Milly Bobby Brown shared her wedding pics

• The post-Rihanna pregnancy fashion is so good. We took a moment to appreciate Jayda G’s looks from the past three months

• eBay has scrapped selling fees, presumably to compete with Vinted

• Sabrina Carpenter is a TIME100 girl

• Playing with the boundaries of what Capsule is here, but these two actors who were in School of Rock as kids just got engaged… see the pics!

• More Brat marketing, this time with billboards for remix collaborators popping up in their hometowns. Was honoured to spot the A. G. Cook one in Camden this week x

• And Ke$ha shared her tried-and-tested way to check if a guy is in it for the right reasons

This week, Amy Beecham popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Amy is a multi award-winning journalist and Senior Writer at Stylist. She's also the author of the Wasting Potential newsletter and is currently working on her first novel.

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📺 Watching: Megalopolis in the cinema, and M&S: Dress The Nation, a new comfort watch that’s exactly like Bake Off except it’s fashion designers competing for the chance to get a design job at M&S.

📖 Reading: This self-reflective essay written by Clairo for Byline, this interview in which Hunter Harris shares her cinema habits, and this article from Amelia Tait exploring when our culture abandoned the “it’s what’s inside that counts” messaging around beauty.

🎧 Listening to: Random songs from this list of Pitchfork’s 100 best songs of the 2020s so far, this George Daniel remix of a salute song, the Channel Tres remix of ‘Tough’ by Quavo and Lana Del Rey, a Lizzy McAlpine song about summer even though it’s getting cold, and this episode of Tasteland about the evolution of magazines.

Some people really thrive in autumn, including Herb, who loves the leaves. The other type of people who thrive are those who like to dress like Tim Burton characters or people from Halloween/horror folk films: this week, searches for “whimsigoth” are at an all-time high. If you’re wondering what that aesthetic looks like, click here…

If you’d like to adopt Herb or one of his friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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