Dawei AW24

"Bystander"
Like Woolf's Orlando She travels through time and space.

Dawei has been one of my favorite designers to see at Paris Fashion Week for a few seasons now. He always knows how to make what is old exciting again. Using 16th century influences and making them modern without being too costumed. This season he was inspired by "Orlando". When I think of "Orlando", I think of Tilda Swinton's movie version in which the main character lives through time and space and navigates within different genders. It is a beautiful story of changing circumstances and perceptions through time and relativity.

The designer starts our journey in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City where the subject is an elegant lady standing in front of a painting. She is from the upper east side. She is dressed in a black cape with rounded shoulders. It is designed in such a way as to keep people at a distance, almost like armor. The journey continues with 1990s Milan. The gray of this time and place was represented by the boy in a gray suit, who in our imagination should be leaning on a bar. And at this moment an ambiguous toast was proposed and everyone raised their glasses. Then in a blink of an eye it is postwar Paris and elegance is the theme to everything. A new vibrant wave of optimism has women dressing in gorgeous emerald green and bright orange silks and velvets. The silhouettes were blooming, much like the everything at the time.

We as the audience were invited to be the bystander, watching all of these scenes go by. We leave no trace of ourselves at the end of the show, we were just there to witness. And what we witnessed was a beautiful story of time and space, a few intriguing vignettes that were begging to be explored further. If only next season would guarantee a continuation of the story.

For more about Dawei, click HERE