Daniel Delcore’s idea of nature isn’t that of a bucolic idyll, but rather that of a powerful force—magnetic and mysterious, sometimes alien and inhabited by organic mutating wonders. He’s traveled to the remotest places, sometimes just to look closely at the most minuscule and unassuming life forms—fungi, spores, mold growing on the trunks of exotic trees, rare insects, spectacular sea anemones, and other swimming or flying creatures whose names are familiar only to mad scientists.
This otherworldly environmen has found its way into his creations from the very beginning. Delcore’s shapes and volumes reference the metamorphic process of nature, as they’re often undulating, sinuous, and hybridized. For pre-fall, which was called Abstract Two as he considers it as being an evolution of the show’s narrative, he was drawn to more dramatic, even threatening natural phenomena, like volcanic explosions, flows of erupting lava, incandescent magma, and even desert landscapes pierced by meteorites and nuclear dust. A sort of metaphor of a not so distant nightmarish future, if earth continues to be eroded by human foolishness.
“I was thinking about a sort of apocalypse, where nature collapses and implodes,” he said. “But there’s also hope in its power of self-regeneration.” To that end, he worked on an intense palette of blood red, dark burgundy, and black, with occasional flashes of white, and kept the silhouette alternatively dramatic and languid. Surfaces were treated to recall tectonic movements, crevices; shapes were intended as shells protecting the fragility of what is underneath. A rugged-looking tweed, corrugated with in-woven micro sequins, was cut into short and ovoid-shaped coats of generous proportions; a majestic oxblood-red shearling greatcoat was wrapped over an ethereal slip dress in nude silk chiffon. On a similar note, the black silk velvet of a slinky asymmetrical dress was appliquéd with clusters of crystals, “as if they were little fires crawling over its surface, or alien little creatures overgrowing on it,” Delcore explained.
The same wrinkly, furry finish was given to knitwear, while a simple white T-shirt (worn by Delcore himself in the lookbook) was emblazoned with a drawing of a not-so-benevolent bunch of undulating fungi. An inquisitive eye peeked out from what looks like a mushroom dissolving into an irradiated sunray shape. “It’s a reminder that as humans we’ll be judged for what we’re doing to the earth,” said Delcore. “It’s also about the mystery of mutation: what will we be a thousand years from now? Will space still exist? You find no answers to these questions—unless you want to go straight into a state of no-return insanity.” There’s definitely a streak of the mad scientist chez Daniel Delcore.
