Two days after our digital preview, Jil Sander’s Japanese parent company announced it would be selling the brand to Only the Brave. Owned by Diesel founder Renzo Rosso, the group is known for championing adamant creativity with a portfolio that includes John Galliano’s Maison Margiela and Francesco Risso’s Marni. While this Jil Sander collection was business as usual for Lucie and Luke Meier—who will remain as creative directors under Rosso’s patronage—they did shoot it in an hôtel particulier in Le Marais currently “under construction.”
Timed for fall, the Meiers’ collection proposed clothes as tools for giving a purpose to people’s step in the wake of the pandemic. “It’s a time of change for everybody. To be able to achieve change you need to feel empowered to do so. The way you dress changes the way you feel about yourself,” said Lucie. Luke added: “You want people to feel better, to feel good, strong, powerful; that this is our future. This is our medium to do so.” Within the purist frames of their expression, they conveyed that message in hints of boldness, from the decisive sculpting of coats and skirts to hand-spun dresses with fringing cascading from the bias, and lingerie dresses with glamorous lashings of lace. Big, ornate crystals made princely appearances.
But there was a clinical undertone to the collection that served as a testament to our current crisis mode. Long gloves may have had an operatic air about them, but they were crafted in unlined leather and medical pastels that easily evoked our pandemic reality. Similarly, vegan leather trousers creased synthetically on the skin, invoking a surgical mood. “Somebody said, ‘Ah, you’re doing gloves because you don’t want to touch anything now?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah…I guess so?’” Luke reflected, crediting his subconscious with the faintly alarming character that eventually formed in the collection.
Inadvertent or not, it’s the disquieting or slightly “wrong” elements that make Jil Sander interesting; that make one collection stand out from the other amid the purism that encompasses the Meiers’ universe. The designers have proven they can master a wardrobe that quietly but solidly evolves with every season. Under their new ownership—and with Rosso’s encouragement—they will likely have the opportunity to embrace those elements in a bigger way; a more dramatic fashion proposal. Once we return to the real world and our transitional wardrobe has done its duty, fashion will no doubt be expecting some big gestures.
