Lucie and Luke Meier made their Jil Sander runway debut outdoors during sunset at a soon-to-open mall at the foot of Milan’s new Zaha Hadid–designed tower. It was a break from the past—the string of creative directors that preceded them all showed at the company’s headquarters—and a display of confidence. Though this is the first time they’ve worked together, the Meiers have reason to feel bold; they arrived at Sander with impressive résumés. Lucie’s most recent gig was Dior opposite Serge Ruffieux, a much bigger stage than this one, and Luke cofounded the men’s label OAMC after working for nearly a decade at Supreme, the streetwear brand whose phenomenal success is the envy of all of fashion.
That boldness aside, Sander’s legacy is a daunting one to wrangle with. To start with, Sander left the brand she founded in 2000, and that’s a lifetime in fashion. Then there’s the fact, which is related, that the German designer was a cool minimalist, known for the deft way she tailored a suit, and that’s just not where fashion is at in 2017, despite the best efforts of some to resurrect the ’90s. A faithful reimagining of Sander’s oeuvre could snap the industry out of its current taste for eccentric quirk, or it could risk looking irrelevant.
The Meiers did a deep study of the designer’s work and came to the conclusion that we misremember Sander. “A lot of the time, the first impression of her is cold, sparse, and hard,” Luke said. “What she did,” Lucie added, “was also feminine, light, and sensual; that was the approach for us.” So, yes, there were suits here and they were Jil Sander correct, with narrowed shoulders and sharp creases on the arms and body, plus the occasional sliced seam to amplify visual interest. And the designers devoted a fair bit of attention to the Sander-signature white shirt, de-crisping it with soft puffed sleeves and generous volumes, or elongating it into shirtdresses of ascetic proportions. The surprise was in the collection’s craftiness. On the continuum of less to more convincing were color-blocked sweater dresses in an openwork stitch; macramé accents under coats, circling waistbands, and draped on top of shirts; and delicately but generously smocked ethereal white dresses.
In the end, the expansive show venue didn’t work in the Meiers’ favor; it’s hard to fill such a grand space with emotion, even with 60 looks, and the intimacies that the designers seem to favor are better appreciated at close range. That said, there was promise here.