In the wake of founder Johan Lindeberg’s departure back in May, BLK DNM has opted to move forward without appointing a successor, instead leaving design duties up to the studio team. Lindeberg’s vision for the brand has left them a concrete aesthetic vernacular to be built upon; Spring ’16 marks his last season, a collection handled in part by him and in part by the in-house talents. Here, Lindeberg’s chief preoccupations—freewheeling ’60s and ’70s rock ’n’ roll sensibilities quintessentially embodied by everyone from Keith Richards and Gram Parsons to Patti Smith—came to life in wearable, 21st-century ways.
There was plenty of common ground between this and the season’s menswear offering, and why not? Chances are the BLK DNM girl’s beau dresses as well as (if not better than) she does. Consider a whiskey-color jacket decked out in yards of fabulous, shuddering fringe; that same fabrication came to life as a sweet, Jane Birkin–esque shift, too. Quiet touches like pony beads, spotted dangling off the zips of a leather jacket, were proof that the devil is in the details—and that those details add appeal that goes a long way in setting BLK DNM’s takes on well-trod iconic pieces apart from the pack. Likewise, tailoring has always been a strong suit of the line’s, and the revival of an old silhouette—the terrific shawl-collar Blazer 32—could scarcely be more timely: Not long before the launch of this collection, Kendall Jenner was spotted out and about in a “vintage” iteration of the style.
