Fashion Meets Design: Three Shows That Have Us Inspired This Season.

Fashion and design have always been intertwined, natural partners that overlap in sinuous ways. Both industries create elevated sensory experiences in the pursuit of making our everyday lives better and more comfortable (for the most part). Yet while the marrying of form and function is at the heart of both, the runway is a place for pure, unadulterated spectacle and art.

Some of our favourite fashion moments have been when fashion and design collide, and things are no different this season. A series of intersecting collaborations for Autumn Winter 24—from Milan to Paris—are already blowing us out of the water with their creativity.

Whether the events are being used as a vessel for change, to inspire or surprise, we always make sure to tune in to be challenged. Read on for three shows this season that have captured our imaginations.

Gaetano Pesce’s Set for Bottega Veneta Summer 2023 Show.

The Humanist architect-designer-artist Gaetano Pesce was given creative carte blanche to produce a temporary site-specific...

 

Issey Miyake Homme Plissé Autumn Winter show at Paris Fashion Week in collaboration with Ronan Bouroullec.

Issey Miyake has collaborated with French designer Ronan Bouroullec for their Issey Miyake Homme Plissé Autumn Winter 2024 menswear show in Paris. The collection looks to Ronan’s growing body of textural and abstract drawings, reinterpreting them into a collection of garments and accessories. The partnership goes together like wine and cheese, or the final piece of a puzzle—it just fits.

The designer had previously turned down requests from the fashion house, stating, “I didn’t want my drawings to be used as patterns.” But this time, the design team at Homme Plissé Issey Miyake pitched a new collection that focused more on translating the spirit of the various artworks, as the team explains “the interpretation of creative visuals goes beyond turning them into motifs and patterns.”

There are coats that convert into cushions and scarves that can be worn as hats. “The items are knitted with multi-coloured yarn and have holes in considered places, allowing them to be wrapped and worn in multiple ways by passing the head or arms through them, creating wearable art,” the brand said.

Ronan’s now synonymous gradient strokes from felt-tip drawings were fashioned into the brand’s signature pleated fabric—their asymmetric silhouettes echoing the blank space of the page. Felt-tip brush strokes were silkscreen-printed in layers onto all-white outerwear or translated into scarfs made from multi-coloured yarn.

Tajimi Custom Tiles Debuts at Milan Design Week 2022.

The Bouroullecs, Max Lamb and Kwangho Lee presented a series of objects for the company in the beautiful industrial space Gallery Saab One...

 

CC-Tapis hosts Sunnei at their Milanese headquarters for the Autumn Winter 24 show.

As always, at any Sunnei fashion show, it’s best to expect the unexpected. Working in collaboration with cc-tapis, the Italian rug manufacturer hosted the avant-garde brand in its Milanese headquarters, introducing its new made-in-Milan-rug service. Models walked on a huge 72-square-metre striped carpet, unfolded right before the show started.

As the scenography took place, spanning two levels and an atrium surrounded by balconies, a surreal theatrical layer was added—the music was replaced by voiceovers, supposedly describing what the models were thinking. “Whoever cares about what models are thinking when they perform?” asked Sunnei creators Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina. “This season, we’re giving a stage to their mental spaces—just to create a new layer of madness.”

As our top picks, we have oversized duvet-like puffer jackets complete with interchangeable covers and fluffy mohair jumpers with trailing scarves. To add another layer to the artistic performance, a few pieces were crafted from the striped rug fabric with help from cc-tapis. Put together with snaps rather than sewn together, they can return to the striped carpet below when unsnapped.

Interpreting Conviviality: SUNNEI and Bloc Studios’ Marble Dining Room Objects.

The collaborative collection transforms typical dining room objects into one-of-a-kind marble pieces, playing around with paradox...

Bottega Veneta Autumn Winter 24 show at Milan Fashion Week in collaboration with Cassina, Fondation Le Corbusier & Murano.

One thing fashion and design have in common is a tendency to reflect the social and political times, good or bad. For Bottega’s FW24 show at Milan Fashion Week, Creative Director Matthieu Blazy tried to synthesise his feelings of the world around him into a collection—with the help of some design heavyweights. “We all watch the same news,” Matthieu stated in show notes. “It is hard to be celebratory at this point.”

With Cassina in charge of the show’s seating, Le Corbusier LC14 Cabonon box stools, developed in close collaboration with Fondation Le Corbusier, wound their way around the space. Burnt by hand, the singularity of technique echoed to Matthieu a commitment to the individual and uniqueness. “Nothing repeats—like the Intrecciato,” he elaborates. The floors were given the same scorched wood treatment, continuing the tribute to Corbusier throughout.

“I have been visiting and thinking about the South of Italy, of Calabria and the cactus,” the creative director shared. “It is an idea of resilience—the cactus grows where nothing else can grow. In a world on fire, there is something very human in the simple act of dressing.” In that vein, orange walls signalled a new dawn rather than dusk. The orange hue is matched with giant flowering Murano cacti sculptures, driving Bottega’s message of hope home.

Step Inside Bottega Veneta's Veneto Atelier.

Set within a luminous restored 19th-century villa, the film celebrates the brands crafts people, and the meticulous handmade processes behind...

[Images courtesy of Issey Miyake, SUNNEI & Bottega Veneta. ]