“Brutal honesty,” said Dirk Bikkembergs’s creative director, Lee Wood, backstage at his sophomore show this morning. He was referring to a kind of internal reckoning—one sprung from looking at Brutalist architecture, naturally—as he continues to clean up the Bikkembergs aesthetic. And what Wood revealed today was, honestly, solidly fortified and generally pretty convincing.
He made sure to mention sturdy fabrics, such as a “rough” jersey used to build out a workwear jacket, or a raw highlighter green denim-and-black leather combo that was “so stiff, it stands up on its own.” (This was used to create another utilitarian-leaning jacket.) Crombie coats had leather strap bands sewn at the shoulder; a great oatmeal-hued windowpane tailored suit was washed in starch to give it “awkwardness.” These were all strong. Wood’s palette was clean, moving from dark to light with the added dashes of green near the catwalk’s end. And even though a few pieces in the roster stepped too headlong into odd territory (some of that chartreuse color-work, for example), there was some intentionality there. “I don’t want to make things too pretty,” said Wood.
