Dune was one of the many books Joseph Altuzarra read during lockdown. On a Zoom call, he described the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert as one of the very early environmental books. “It really resonated with me and my anxieties about survival,” he said. As a designer Altuzarra also connected with Herbert’s descriptions of what people wore to endure difficult conditions. A Denis Villeneuve remake of David Lynch’s iconic 1984 film adaptation is due at the end of the year, so there’s a timeliness to Altuzarra’s starting point this season.
We aren’t a feudal interstellar society yet—this will not be mistaken for Altuzarra’s one-and-only sci-fi collection. But he and his peers are designing for a changed world, one that has reprioritized questions of comfort and practicality and shifted notions about what’s sexy. The high-slit pencil skirts that were his earliest signature, for example, are not a factor. Instead, many of the skirts here have airy volumes, while the slinkier ones are adaptable, with functional baroque pearl buttons tracing the seams that allow the wearer to decide how much leg to show off. A restraint/release theme carries over into other garments, including dresses with caped, cocoon-like shoulders that can be peeled back—“morphed,” is the word he used—to create a different silhouette.
A video Altuzarra made chronicles how he put the collection together. “It’s about opening up the process and not trying to hide the scrappy part of me—letting people see the passion and love,” he said. Resourceful might be a better word than scrappy. One of his most compelling innovations this season is the re-crafted material he made by shredding old Altuzarra fabrics and re-knitting them into separates and bags, which have been an early hit with retailers. Another is the pleating story, which Altuzarra likened to “almost a couture development.” It involved cutting traditional pleats and heat pressing them back together, with results that are wavy and irregular rather than strict—and more interesting for it.
“I’ve vacillated between extremes this season,” Altuzarra confided, “elated but also scared, inspired but also stifled, kind of optimistic and hopeless as well. I wanted to be honest about how I felt.” As we approach the end of fashion month, the surprise of the pandemic is just how galvanizing it has been for designers. This New York Times headline resonates: “The Pandemic Depression Is Over. The Pandemic Recession Has Just Begun.” Business may be down—but creativity is up.
