When we visited the Lycée Carnot at the end of summer, we were all thrown back into the emotions of being a teenager in high-school - a work in progress, in permanent becoming.
How familiar and cross-cultural this feeling is: vulnerability and confidence, confusion and clarity.
A customised school uniform, a worn out sweater. Clothes that shape you, clothes one feels good in.
The embrace of a drape, the protection of a padded jacket, the confidence of a favourite pair of jeans.
Shortly after, I came across two Flemish still-lifes from the 1680s “Two Peaches and a Butterfly on a Stone Plinth”
and “Flowers and Insects”. Simple elements, sublimated into the image of the fleeting nature of beauty and life.
We used these as the starting point of the prints, as detailed as they are symbolic.
This AW26 collection starts in this conjunction; the transient moment that leads from youth to adulthood.
When identity forms and what we wear defines how we are perceived, and how we perceive ourselves.
The fragile time of change, before identity sets in, lasts for a little moment before it is gone.
Just like a pixelated picture, the more one gets far from that time of endless questioning, the clearer it becomes.
-Julian
Dries Van Noten AW26/27
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