Veronica Leoni for Calvin Klein, and other stuff
This Week In Fashion
It took a while there for the week to get going in terms of fashion happenings, and although she’s still pretty itty bitty, the week between Christmas and New Years still reigns supreme in uneventfulness. Also! New header font— do we hate it? I think it’s kind of dumb in a fun way. ALSO, here’s a piece I did on wedding guest outfit inspo if you’d like to give it a look— I blacked out putting these looks together, I don’t know how it happened but hey, it’s a fun time!
Anyway, let’s get into it.
Veronica Leoni has been named the new creative director of Calvin Klein.
If you’re a fashion freak, you’re probably familiar with Leoni, but if not, she was a 2023 LVMH Prize finalist for her brand QUIRA. Most recently, she’s worked with Moncler, and her CV also includes Celine, Jil Sander, and The Row.
As you may know, Calvin Klein hasn’t done runway or had a creative director for Collection since Raf Simons, and that was a very short stint. Calvin wanted Raf because, well, he’s Raf Simons, and they were hoping with the Raf touch, the brand would be pushed into a new space and appeal to a broader clientele. This partnership did not work out how they envisioned and ended up being too fashun for them— I also here there was some behind the scenes miscommunication!
Regardless, I really do hope for the best and am excited to see what Leoni brings to the brand, because I think her brand is pretty cool. It’s also been interesting that a lot of the appointments we’ve been seeing involve people who have experience under Phoebe Philo. I just hope that this isn’t another “Phoebe’s Celine” brand, because I feel like we have enough of those.
I didn’t write an official review for this collection, but I still had a few thoughts I wanted to share!
For starters, it’s no secret that I haven’t had the nicest things to say about Daniel Lee’s Burberry— he had one pre-fall collection that made me salivate, and then crickets. However, this is kind of stunning? The outerwear alone is really brilliant, and the whole collection is a very nice display of taking those heritage house codes and intermingling them with the more contemporary.
The prices at Burberry have garnered a lot of attention since they’re absolutely insane, so when talking about this collection, Daniel said that he wants to make sure they’re making high quality clothing that will last, and that reflects the price point. From what we can see in the lookbook, that seems to be evident, and I think the inclusion of utilitarian styles furthers this made to last idea. He also spoke about how although this is an English brand, they do well in a lot of warmer climates, so using leathers and furs, but making them very thin is smart.
When Daniel plays with textiles and textures he really shines, and there’s a lot of that here. The ruffled details that look like the fabric has been julienned are scrumptious, and the thick fringed furs are an incredibly fun time (the green one especially). It’s Burberry, so there’s plaids, of course, but furs done almost in a patchwork style to look like a plaid are very compelling. Laser cutout florals feel like a great continuation of strong codes he’s been incorporating and I’m scared to get my hopes up since I already did that once and was disappointed, but I look forward to seeing what comes next.
- Speaking of Calvin Klein! The Pride campaign is so good. I love fashion campaigns featuring good music and I would like to see more of it. Also! This made me giggle, because the campaign was styled by Dara Allen, which we love to see, but what did Dara also style? Troye Sivan’s ‘One Of Your Girls’ music video. Who directed this campaign? Gordon von Steiner. Who directed Troye’s ‘Rush’ and One Of Your Girls’ music videos? Gordon von Steiner. Who did the choreography for this campaign? Sergio Reis. Who choreographed Troye’s ‘Rush’ music video? Sergios Reis. Like?? Why not just put Troye in it, lmao?
- CFDA Fashion Fund Finalists are here!!! They include:
Taylor Thompson, 5000
Connor McKnight, Connor McKnight
Grace Ling, Grace Ling
Kate Barton, Kate Barton
Dynasty and Soull Ogun, L’Enchanteur
Spencer Phipps, Phipps
Presley Oldham, Presley Oldham
Sebastien and Marianne Amisial, Sebastien Ami
Jane Wade, Jane Wade
Jackson Wiederhoeft, Wiederhoeft
- Proenza Schouler and Vans collaborated to create some very puffy slip ons. Sure!
- Nara Smith wore Chanel Pre-Fall 2024 to make one of her performance art recipes and I’m intrigued. Before I say anything, what I’m about to say has NOTHING to do with Nara. I love her and I think she is a brilliant troll. Anyway, it’s very interesting that Chanel is going the influencer route— Nara isn’t the only person I saw sporting Chanel this week. Since she’s wearing a full look, I’m going to assume it was lent to her, maybe gifted, but since she’s wearing the full look, I feel like there were some asks here, and it smells like an #ad. In a weird way, this makes sense to me with the way that Chanel is positioned as this luxury brand of the 1% who are untouchable, and Nara is kind of that in a weird way. She’s “perfect” and we peasants do not have the time to make cough drops from scratch for our sick kids, you know? At the same time, they’re appealing to a younger audience, which is something they’ve been trying to do through the clothes themselves, allegedly.
- Troye Sivan wore custom Helmut Lang by Peter Do, based on the SS2003 collection. We love taste!
