Astrid Andersen's hyperthyroid menswear comes with constants. There will always be jerseys. There will always be fur. There will always be hip-hop blasting on the soundtrack. But for Fall, you had only to look at the logo on your seat—Andersen's usual basketball-cum-rune, only now half melted and smeared—to see something different. That melted, moiré effect turned into a jacquard that ran through the show. It looked, in the abstract, like the marbled endpapers of a hand-printed book, circa a century or two back.
Or so you thought. Andersen arched an eyebrow at the suggestion. No, she said, the collection this season was inspired by Only God Forgives, the gritty, neo-noir gangster film by fellow Dane Nicolas Winding Refn. "It's the juxtaposition of the movie—brutal but so sensitive," the designer said after the show. "I wanted the colors and the fabrics to feel quite sensitive—you have that feminine feel, but I wanted the guys to be more aggressive."
Feminine was the shine, the hair (long, stick-straight, center-parted). Luxurious were the swirling golds, turquoises, and icy blues, even as they were accented by sweats with snap-over shorts, inspired by nineties Adidas gear. This new softer luxe eked Andersen forward, but even as the codes, like the logo, got scrambled, many of the same strictures remained. There's a sense with Andersen that she's doing her version of "street," but it can tend toward the literal. A full-length fur splashed with her name was music-video ready, which brought you full circle from Danish gangster to gangster rap, the most frequently dropped reference where the designer is concerned. What was interesting was that she wasn't ready to cede the point. "It does have references to American hip-hop culture," she admitted. "That's where my fascination lies. But I don't think it's gangster. For me, it's just a confidence thing. Whenever someone is that confident and wearing a long fur coat, he becomes gangster."
