Spring Summer 2023 Menswear

Zlatyu
00142023

The Spring Summer 2023 collection explores the psychological challenge and subsequent breakthrough of the designer and artist in the face of trauma. Our collective experience of the masculine wardrobe is deeply entrenched in the tenets of war, power and industry - inescapable echoes of the field and the battlefield. Of work, victory, and pain. When historic and politicised garments are divorced from the practical application of their design, archetypes still resound with unspoken histories. Deconstructing the relationships between clothing and circumstance past, a willingness to shift the narrative emerges. Prejudice is displaced when volatile subject matters are confronted, appropriated and romanticised.

Approaching the Ottoman rule of his native Bulgaria as the lynchpin for an evolving stylistic exercise, Kiko Kostadinov confronts intergenerational pain with a stoic lightness. The structure and drape of Janissary uniforms are referenced within the lexicon of contemporary patternmaking studies. The agrarian landscapes of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev’s mid-century oil painting and the Vietnamese artist Dahn Võ’s monumental criticism of America through sculpture inform silhouette and ornament respectively.

Familiar lines are retraced, rescaled, and at times reversible, starting from a collarless suit worn three ways. Erudite ensembles propose an incongruent materiality, as light seersucker, striped poplin and dry cotton towelling intersects with iridescent twill, Suri alpaca, calf leather and chenille. Peaked ‘swallowtail’ motifs wrap around the figure, panelled into coats and drawstring anoraks or snapped down trousers to create graphic structures. With a ceremonial extravagance, jacket shoulders peel off into posable sash volumes whilst copper and rose gold foiling and tiled jacquard patches are riveted down the facade in an ode to Võ’s We The People (2010-2014). Subtle technicality reigns in bombé jacket forms and concealed pocket constructions, snap-off culotte trousers, and contoured leather piping details. Mediaeval moccasins and boots inform laced, tongue-less Kiko Kostadinov sneakers built on an Asics sole, and velcro boots with saffiano detailing.