Calvin Luo presented a sartorial collection for fall that is an ode to Paris and nods to Helmut Newton’s work — especially “Le Smoking,” the iconic black-and-white shot of a model wearing a tuxedo suit standing on a night-lit Paris street, from 1975.
“I wanted to do a collection based on the Smoking suit,” said the Chinese designer, who has not been able to travel to Paris during the past five seasons due to the pandemic and misses the city.
Luo delved into archives of Smoking suits from the Seventies and felt they were not of today, that they look “too formal and serious,” he said.
His sleek, gender-bending garments, primarily in black, gray and white, were full of sharp tailoring and deconstructed elements, often with his signature hardware decorations, like chains.
A cropped black jacket top came with a square metal closure, which also adorned the matching suit trousers’ high cuffs. The tailored gray pants extruded upward and were belted across a model’s chest and worn with a mini jacket. An ankle-length skirt was spangled with sequins, as was the spaghetti-strap dress, with everything paired with square-toed sneakers.
Luo’s moody fashion film, “Le Noir,” was shot in Paris, where models — smoking e-cigarettes — wandered at night.
