Ladislav Zdut, co-owner of Nehera, concurred over email that the press release for this collection was a little on the skimpy side. He kindly agreed to join the dots in a further mail he wrote while flying back to Europe from South Korea, where, he added, sales of the brand are picking up nicely.
Thirty thousand feet up over who knows where, Zdut elaborated: “We understand our mission as similar to the architect’s role. We create a space for a creative life. We provide freedom and inspiration. Let me quote Adolf Loos: ‘The work of art is a private matter for the artist. The house is not.’ Our ambition is to translate this into fashion.”
The creative space these clothes were intended to help shape was framed in a context similar to that of Nehera’s most recent resort collection: the pandemic’s advent, an instinctive wish to return to nature, and a sense of “precautionary relief between the two waves.” As in resort, Zdut’s team again looked at pagan rituals and worked to produce a collection in elemental materials and neutral colorways—in truth an ongoing motif of the house—with a heavy emphasis on tailoring, which Zdut says is the touchstone of Nehera’s “ongoing creative expression.” The tailoring in looks one and 13 was cut in a summer-weight silk-linen mix, while 19’s shorts suit was delivered in unadulterated cotton poplin.
What decorative gestures there were were gentle: a print of a Viktor Szemzö floral photo in look 20’s loose cotton-silk dress, and more florals based on the first images ever achieved by photocopying, by Xerox, as exemplified by look 21’s tie-strapped dress. If this was a collection whose design was an exercise in working hard to appear not overworked, it worked. “Space means luxury,” wrote Zdut from above, and here he presented a luxury space it would be a pleasure to inhabit.
