As she looks to write her next chapter after taking home this year’s grand prize at the ANDAM Fashion Awards, Marie Adam-Leenaerdt is refining her discourse. “I started with what I’ve learned from the seven past seasons and what I want to bring to the brand for the future, so a bit of lightness, always with a conceptual aspect of easy chic,” summed up the Belgian designer ahead of her show on Tuesday, which included the label’s first pieces for men.
Her surrealist touches were more subtle this season, but resolutely there, as she offered up her take on dressing for a trip to the shops or a match day, but with a wardrobe that was the opposite of humdrum. “A bit too chic for the supermarket, too chic for the market, too chic to go to the football, but super-easy chic,” was how she summed it up.
She staged her darkened venue as a fanciful supermarket, somewhere between a couture salon and a place to shop, with strange fruit and vegetable sculptures placed on central pedestals and in refrigerators in the background.
There were padded jackets and belted cardigan coats that nodded to the everyday, but what dominated the collection was a sense of subtle distortion, with designs that looked like lightweight sculptures using the wearer’s body as a framework but standing apart in their own right, slightly off kilter.
Taffeta suiting was oversize and crinkly, the elevated material contrasting with the edgy constructions, some with giant bow details at the neck. There were dresses with mini-hoops on the hips that made them jut out, while miniskirts seemed to hover around the waist in a similar manner to the designer’s velvet bustier dresses, which made a return appearance. Slinky jersey robes were morphed with bodysuits, while deep-slit skirts showed off a single stockinged leg.
