037: I'm in my Tom Ford-era Gucci era
037: I'm in my Tom Ford-era Gucci era
Plus Gemsun's spring collection, a Peter Do archive sale benefitting Ukraine, and the undeading of several mall brands.
How about just this. A cheat sheet to today’s send for the slackers amungus:
Uncah Gemsun launches spring collection
The Peter Do archive sale password is allaccess2020
Telfar bags and Telfar-adjacent bags by some miracle available for narrow window
I’m still opening tabs to Tom Ford-era Gucci I can’t afford, but these ones have prices written in red
SSENSE ships free. That’s it, that’s the bullet point.
What’s new
In the hemispheres, there is spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Quietly expanding apparel and accessories brand Gemsun respectfully declines this paradigm and offers instead Blumenwiese, Meeresluft, Wanderung, and, as “the fresh spring air is filled with the magic of awakenings and a lingering smell of flowers starts to blossom,” we enter Frischluft. The latest collection by the trio of women cut from the accoladed fashion mainstream—Phoebe’s Céline included—extends its ongoing experimentations with salvaged materials further into the world of color. Shot in the new second home of the brand, Mexico City, the collection’s campaign teases equally bright and voce sotto linens, inspired belts, and new iterations of the crochet bags already ubiquitous to the Lower East Side.
To curb overproduction, Nomasei—the shoe brainchild of Paule Tenaillon and Marine Braquet, designers by way of Chloe, Dior, Jil Sander, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Givenchy—only releases two small collections per year, the first of which just dropped for 2022. The brand is celebrated for its boots, but its clever, elegant sandals and loafers are just as cool and luxurious, executed in incredible and comfortable materials. The newest styles, including a strappy low heel and well-researched retro platform, are refreshingly untrendy, like you’d spot them in old Parisian 35mm of girls in demure dresses out on the town.
Swiss shoe brand On running’s niche “we’re not for everyone and that’s okay” modus operandi makes it a choice partner for luxury, especially a quirk-flirt like Loewe under JW. The track suit and sneaker collaboration manages the flamboyance of a wealthy Spanish tourist to whom austerity is not a quality to strive for. Hold that up to the light against Demna’s trefoil youths or Martine Rose’s hooligans, and you’ll find an indulgent dose of levity that designer sportswear’s been missing for too long.
Speaking of athletics (and MOs), the much-chatted-about High Sport has landed at Moda Operandi. A passion project of Khaite and The Row alum Alissa Zachary, High Sport’s clean lines and optimistic hues executed in luxury fabrics echo of utopian, colorblocked ‘90s ads from Gap and United Colors of Benetton.
Meanwhile, the real Gap, too, is diving with renewed vigor into its own archive for inspiration on new projects. The brand’s latest, its Spring ‘22 collection, centers on “khaki-colored denim” inspired by the “wheat” denim debuted in 1979. The collection, which went live on the 10th, coincided with the release of a designed-to-go-viral collab with Harlem’s Dapper Dan in the form of a hoodie with the letters “DAP” spelled out in Gap’s classic arch logo style. The sweatshirt sold out in seconds and felt like a phantom future of that never-materialized Telfar partnership. Still, the rest of Gap’s crisp khakis and solid pastel separates are an easy ride into summer.
Relatedly, Luar’s Ana bag is poised to be the next Telfar Shopping Bag by every indication: its community-loved designer, instantly recognizable shape and broad color range, and accessible price point. One difference (for the time being, at least), is that Luar’s Mini Anas are by some miracle still in stock at Nordstrom SPACE.
Paris Hilton partners with Quay Australia in a stroke-of-genius team-up that repositions the sunglass brand’s chintzy frames as a celebration of bad taste with a post-modern appreciation for low-brow. Where J.Lo’s Quay line felt self-serious, Paris’ aughties lens pities the over-thinker.
Marni teams up with Veja on a slim collection, adorned in subversively jolly scribbles that feel like an apt signature for Marni to leave on the otherwise *~MiNiMAl~* sneaker brand. They’re also a clip cheaper than the On x Loewe collab, at under $300 each.
Thinx has expanded its reach by eking its diffusion line, Thinx for All, into Walmart. The period panties are more affordable than those in its core line but include the same absorbent technology that quite literally changed my relationship to menstruation (maybe my life?) altogether. I’m all for this democratization and its far-reaching potential, from personal health to environmental waste reduction.
And in other girlboss-gone-wrong aftermath, while exiled Outdoor Voices founder moves onto new ventures (bargaining with kids for feedback in exchange for NFTs), her former company learns new tricks of its own: windbreaker-like BreakLite pullovers, shorts, skirts, and track pants.
There’s also: Alaïa introduces the adorable and entry-level heart-shaped Le Coeur bag; Susan Alexandra releases an astrology-inspired star sign collection, plus a @starterpacksofnyc series (for which I am a sucker) to go along with it; Chinese knitwear brand YanYan launches 15 new styles at Nordstrom; Reformation releases new sandals for spring; the third chapter of I'm Sorry by Petra Collins lands at SSENSE, and prices start at $50; Ines de la Fressange’s Spring ‘22 collection with Uniqlo is live; CUUP adds two new colors to its swim lineup; for Women’s History Month; DKNY launches a marketplace for mane-by-women goods; excellent Italian skincare brand Furtuna Skin launches at Nordstrom; in more suitcase news, Away launches Technicolor; Ugg x Telfar shoppers drop today at noon; and Wisconsin-hailing NYFW fave Elena Velez lands her first of two drops for the season at SSENSE.
What’s on sale
Some sales are sales, other sales are marketing tricks, other sales yet are marketing tricks wrapped in museum-caliber collectibles. Whether anyone will actually buy the 2020 re-edition of J.Lo’s Versace jungle gown remains to be seen, but 1stDibs’ Annual Sale is as dense with historical-in-the-formal-sense designer pieces as any top-tier fashion university’s archive. Despite the platform’s reputation for furniture and objets d’art, come for the surrealism of seeing Tom Ford-era Gucci marked down, leave with an undervalued Bottega baseball bag perhaps!
The Peter Do archive sale went live today via a designated URL made available first to newsletter subscribers—the password (if you didn’t sign up beforehand) is allaccess2020, and pieces from 2019 onwards are marked up to 80% off. As the brand shared on Instagram this week, proceeds from the sale will go towards NGOs providing meals to Ukrainian refugees.
Last week, Faran Krentcil ID’ed a Jacquemus bikini from the brand’s most recent runway in Hawaii that’s already on sale for 20% off—it’s down to $214 for the top and $170 for the bottoms at Baltini (FYI those are listed “full-price” at Harvey Nicols for less). The immediacy of the discount echoes sales tactics usually found at Nasty Gal and Boohoo, which begs the question: Are Jacquemus clothes worth paying full-price for any more? I know I dredge this one designer up a lot to take my shots, but disappointment in the last two collections is really rooted in a deep love for all his earlier work. To shop current-day Simon, unfortunately, is to wield a fine-tooth comb.
J.Crew is doing 25% off everything with SHOPSPRING, and at the risk of sounding like I’m new here (although it seems my heart is set on undeading mall brands today), they have some very good stuff. A cashmere tee, a pair of ever-increasingly tempting bootcut jeans in ecru, a striped, gashed-neck knit with an ocean call, a platonic poplin button-down, some might-as-well-be-Weejuns… the sheer coquettishness of it all!
Yoox, younger sibling to Net-a-Porter and The Outnet, is offering an extra 25% off a selection of 88,000+ sale pieces no doubt trickled down from better-known members of the YNAP family. McQueen, Fendi, and Jil Sander all stand out as exceptional deals with percentages far exceeding anything you’d find at a seasonal Net sale.
There’s also: & Other Stories’ sale goes up to 70% off; sale items on Marimekko's website are up to 40% off; independent brand launchpad Doors NYC wraps up its winter sale with up to 70% off; get 50% off every color Saie gloss for the next 48 hours with REALLYGREATDAY; the greige army can shop Mansur Gavriel bag and shoe neutrals for 20% off with SPRING20; Mango’s spring sale reaches up to 50% off; account holders can get Madewell jeans 20% off plus free overnight shipping today only; shop WhoWhatWear knitwear for 20% off (starting tomorrow); and the last few sizes of Nicole Saldaña’s brilliant shearling coats (a departure from her just as brilliant footwear) are 50% off with HALFOFF—ignore the decoy listed sale prices, the actual savings are over $500.
What else
Diesel released the first campaign for a new Glenn Martens project under the brand: Diesel Library. A video and several Hockney-esque collage stills star, among others, Toni Braxton’s sons, Diezel and Denim (you can’t make this up), and highlight the line’s low-water, low-chemical, responsibly sourced denim basics.
The original Smiley, preceding both text (:)) and emoji (😊 ), is turning 50 this year, and she’s celebrating, naturally, by rolling out a brickton of collabs that a cynic might hold no one asked for or needs. Even though the only real merch one could hope to score from this particular trademark is is the original shit-stained t-shirt from Forrest Gump, here’s an incomplete list of brands buying into the strawman legacy to varying degrees of bedlam: Nordstrom, Happy Socks, Lee Jeans, Samii Ryan, Alice + Olivia, Dsquared2, Champion, Ciaté London, Loqi, Fossil, Joshua Sanders, Saint James, and Messika.
There’s also: Verishop launches the Female Founders Shop for Women’s History Month (it becomes illegal to buy things from women in April); and SSENSE’s sale may be over, but thank god at least free shipping is back.
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