Satoshi Kondo Takes Issey Miyake in a New Direction

 A performer spins at the spectacular Spring/Summer 2020 show by Issey Miyake's Satoshi Kondo in Paris. Cover picture and all photographs for DAM by Elli Ioannou.

The debut presentation by Satoshi Kondo, the new artistic director of Issey Miyake's womenswear, was the most engaging and talked about show at Paris Fashion Week. The designer took on his new position just a few weeks before the Spring/Summer 2020 season opened in the French capital. We take a look at this innovative designer's burgeoning career. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photography by Elli Ioannou

Models dance and skateboard wearing, light and fluid
nylon creations on the Issey Miyake
Paris SS20 runway.

ISSEY Miyake's Satoshi Kondo, took over from Yoshiyuki Miyamae, the label's former head designer of  women's collections, in September this year. Kondo's first ready-to-wear show in Paris, during fashion week, immediately injected the Japanese fashion house with a new direction, full of youthful energy and new ideas.

Yoshiyuki Miyamae had been artistic director since 2011, creating a range of innovative textiles including the malleable “Dough Dough” fabric. He will stay on at Issey Miyake, working on other research and development projects.

Kondo's debut show was celebrated for its joyful atmosphere and mix of dance, theatre, song and acrobatic performance. The designer said he wanted the presentation to demonstrate the adaptability and versatility of his designs. He has said that bringing happiness to those who wear his clothes is the ethos that drives him: “The joy that can be found in the ritual of getting dressed every day, of finding an outfit that can make you happy for the whole day ~ that’s what inspires me.”

For this first collection he wanted to return to fundamentals and bare his design soul, "be naked" as he described it. The designer talks about tracing back the origins of clothing to simply being wrapped with a piece a of cloth and how primitive and instinctive dressing is.

Kondo's Spring/Summer 2020 collection focused on freedom of movement and it was worn by dancers with choreography created by Daniel Ezralow. Presented in a vast warehouse space, under the high glass roof of a cultural centre called Centquatre in Paris' 19th arrondissement, to a live soundscape created by French artist DeLaurentis.

Satoshi Kondo's debut show was celebrated for its joyful atmosphere and mix of dance, theatre, song and acrobatic performance

Electric skateboards allowed the models to glide around
the vast space of the Centquatre in
Paris' 19th arrondissement

The presentation was made up of different chapters or scenes, each displaying various parts of the collection. These ranged from "draw - connect" at the start; to "dance - turn" at the end. There were acrobatic ballerinas, skateboarding models, dancers, and gowns that descended from the ceiling directly onto the body of the models.

Girls on electric skateboards wore cagoules with fine nylon wings that looked like sails as they scudded across the runway. Made from parachute material they billowed out as models glided around the space on the smooth concrete floor. Kondo wanted the presentation to embody the ideas behind the collection. He worked closely with Ezralow, also the show director, to create a new approach to putting on a presentation which was designed to have a sense of growth.

"It all started from a simple idea of bringing people from different regions and generations together, forming circles and holding hands, as we all share this joy intrinsic to who we are that is not bound by space and time," said Kondo, describing his original vision for the show.

There were ballerinas, skateboarding models, and gowns that descended from the ceiling directly onto the body of the models.


Dusky pink jersey jumpsuits and dresses
draped beautifully from the dancers' bodies

Kondo opened the show with muted, flesh toned colours before adding primary colours and an increasingly vivid palette. The opening looks were designed to show different skin tones and then he used a dusky pink jersey fabric that stretches and drapes easily on the body.

After the neutral hues, the designer brought out the more colourful designs with abstract patterns in bright hues like electric blue on white.

The motifs were designed by the Issey Miyake team. Some of the designs show embracing couples, suggesting emotional warmth. Kondo says he also wanted to maintain the Issey Miyake ethos of combining tradition and innovation in the collection too. Sashiko embroidery is used on trouser and skirt suits, spelling out Issey Miyake in small letters. This type of stitch dates all the way back to the Edo period, the Japanese Baroque.

The designer wanted to keep the Issey Miyake ethos of combining tradition and innovation alive in the collection

After the neutral hues, colourful designs with abstract patterns
 in bright hues appeared
on the runway

Other patterns were created using a dyeing technique called "itajime" where fabric is pleated by hand to create neat folds, and then lodged between boards before being dyed.

"We find things that are intrinsic in both tradition and innovation: in the culture of weaving and dyeing practiced in Japan since the old days, and in the latest manufacturing technologies and materials developed by advanced science," explained the designer. "It is in our interest to look at them with a new perspective, and by connecting and integrating them we can begin to create clothes that bring us a sense of joy."

Kondo believes the exuberance of the collection is due to the movement of the clothes. He even gave some creations "bounce" that was shown off when the gowns descended from the glass roof. The spring in the fabric was created using a technique from the Pleats Please line: the fabric was machine-pleated horizontally then hand-pleated in concentric circles.

"We use both tradition and innovation, hand weaving and dyeing plus the latest technologies and materials developed by advanced science."


The dresses on Perspex hoops up in the glass roof that
descended down to fit the models below

Transparent hoops holding outstretched colourful striped dresses, silently descended from the spaceframe up in the roof, as models stood below with uplifted arms. The pleated dresses fitted perfectly over the girls and were topped off by hats.

Dancers wearing the same striped gowns filled the warehouse space as other performers were suspended from the ceiling, twirling in circles.

Rising to a colourful crescendo, all the models came out wearing a bright array of brilliant hues, holding hands and laughing, running and dancing down the runway. Eric Muller and Maurin Zahnd's African Nights played and the girls bobbed up and down to the music with their bouncy, knitted skirts and rubber sandals, dancing in a circle. It was one of the many feelgood moments in the show.

The scene was perfectly suited to the Instagram era where the dresses coming down from the ceiling to land on the models went viral on social media. The show was both a popular and critical success, with even jaded fashion critics unable to refrain from feeling the joy.

Transparent hoops with colourful striped dresses silently descended from the roof, as models stood below with uplifted arms

Dancers wearing the pleated gowns that came down
 from the ceiling, bounce around
in a circle to the music

Satoshi Kondo's love of fashion began with drawing since he was a child growing up in the historic Japanese city of Kyoto.

And as his mother was a sewing teacher, he was always surrounded by patterns, textiles and new designs. He went on to study at the Ueda College of Fashion in Osaka and graduated from its Fashion Creator Industry Masters course before winning a prize at the SOEN Awards.

He had always been fascinated by the work of Issey Miyake and he started his career under the guidance of the great designer in 2007, becoming a member of the fashion house's design studio. He worked on the Pleats Please and Homme Plissé lines until being appointed director of womenswear. While Satoshi Kondo oversees the collection as a whole he still speaks to Issey  Miyake every day and shows him the collection during its creation. The Issey Miyake philosophy is to work with traditional techniques but also to experiment and create innovative fabrics and explore what the designer calls the "dialogue" between cloth and the body. Although Miyake has some input, he also wants Kondo to express his own ideas.

The scene is perfectly suited to the Instagram era where the dresses descending from the ceiling went viral on social media

For the finale, the models ran exuberantly out together
on to the runway, joined by
Satoshi Kondo

It was Issey Miyake's A-POC sytem using long tubes of knitted cloth ~ which can be cut without any loss of fabric ~ that inspired Kondo's original interest in Issey Miyake.

Part of his latest collection includes pieces using the A-POC system as the designer sees it as the most efficient and sustainable way to create clothes because you don’t need a sewing machine and it has very little waste.

Kondo also works with the Japanese concept of "monotsukuri" or the process of creation. He says he tries to really use a piece of fabric to its full potential. This goes back to the way Issey Miyake always starts his designs with a square piece of cloth, which uses minimal cutting and sewing. This way of designing has been very influential to Satoshi Kondo's formation. But he is also exploring his own aesthetic and philosophy and this burst fully formed on to the Paris fashion stage to great applause this season.

Surrealism Exhibition: Salvador Dali & Rene Magritte

A highlight of the new show is René Magritte's "Black Magic," from 1945. (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) Cover picture: Detail of Salvador Dali's, "The First Days of Spring," 1929 (Collection of The Dali Museum, St. Petersburg FL).

A new exhibition about Salvador Dalí and René Magritte has opened at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Works from forty different museum and private collections around the world have been brought together for the show. The relationship between these two great artists of the Surrealist movement are explored through painting, drawing, sculpture, film and photography, writes Grania Connors

 Salvador Dali, "The Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition," 1934.

(Collection of The Dali Museum, St. Petersburg FL)

A NEW exhibition explores the connection between painters Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. Called 'Dali & Magritte: Two Surrealist Icons in Dialogue,' the show in Brussels features more than a hundred works by the artists, ranging across sixty years and from forty different public and private collections.

 

After the first world war, both artists questioned early 20th century mores and traditions. They wanted to explore the imagination, experiment with new ways of seeing and deconstruct reality. It was in the spring of 1929, that Salvador Dalí and René Magritte met in Paris, surrounded by other artists who became leaders of the avant-garde. Dalí invited Magritte to come to Cadaqués in the summer, the Spanish painter's home, where he would meet Paul Éluard, Joan Miró and Luis Buñuel.

 

"Beyond their meeting in 1929, the relationship between Magritte and Dali undoubtedly is one of the most fruitful of the surrealist movement," said Michel Draguet, the director of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and curator of the show. "After this encounter, Magritte progressively rids himself of the psychoanalytical charge that probably stemmed from his mother’s suicide, to focus on representation. Increasingly, he starts questioning objects in their everydayness, thereby meeting some of Dalí’s aspirations."

"Beyond their meeting in 1929, the relationship between Magritte and Dali undoubtedly is one of the most fruitful of the surrealist movement."


René Magritte, "Forbidden literature," 1936.

(Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels)

The paintings by Dalí and Magritte both challenge the way we look at the world and although they initially had similar aims, the Catalan and the Belgian had different personalities and ways of working.

This exhibition at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, shows the personal, philosophical and aesthetic links between the artists as well as their differences. The cross-pollination of ideas between Dali and Magritte is explored through a wide range of different media from paintings, drawings and sculptures to photographs and films.

The works in the show are lit dramatically against grey and dark-charcoal walls and this enhances the atmospheric paintings that draw the viewer into the surrealist universe. Both artists demonstrate how important the role of surrealism was in the inter-war period, showing the subconscious dealing with the aftermath of conflict. Though their thinking had a common foundation, Dali and Magritte had different ways of painting and their works evoke contrasting emotions. Dali pursued his cohesive vision of metamorphosis with a masterly painterly style and technique. Magritte was highly-skilled but painted forms more as disembodied objects linked by a mysterious juxtaposition that challenges our sense of reality.

"Both artists firmly established their surrealism through research based on the exploration of mimetic representation," said Michel Draguet. "From the mid-twenties, Dalí 'logically' attaches himself to the budding surrealist movement. Between fantasy and the romantic fantastic, his work explore thought open to the revelations of the unconscious."

This exhibition shows the personal, philosophical and aesthetic links between the artists and their  differences through a wide range of works.

Salvador Dali, "Accommodations of Desire,"1929

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Dali based himself in Paris as Joan Miró had advised him to do. Here the young painter questioned figurative art and the representation of reality in his new works. Michael Draguet says that inside Dali's mental landscapes, the figures and objects unravel and then "recompose" in what would become his signature hallucinatory way.

Salvador Dali was born in Figueras in 1904 and was already painting by the age of six. He went on to study at Madrid’s Fine Arts Academy and began to experiment with his work. By 1927, when he was only 23 years old he had already developed a personal style. Two years later, Joan Miró introduced him to the Surrealist group in Paris which is where he met René Magritte for the first time.

One of the outstanding aspects of Dalí's work is his virtuoso skill in painting his surrealist visions from his lifelong study of the great Renaissance artists. He abhorred the slackness and lack of direction he observed in some of the Modern art being created around him. By the time of his introduction to Magritte in 1929, he had developed a method which he believed gave him access to the unconscious by analysing the way we project images into shapes when we look at them. Salvador Dali moved to the United States in 1940, when he was already rich and famous (unlike Magritte), and he continued to have a long and successful career.

Joan Miró introduced Salvador Dali to the Surrealist group in Paris which is where he met René Magritte for the first time.

René Magritte, "The key to the fields," 1936.

(Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)

Meanwhile, René Magritte, six years older than Dali, spent much of his life in his native Belgium. He was seventeen years old when he moved to Brussels to study at the Fine-Arts Academy. Magritte went on to experiment with both Futurism and Cubism before becoming interested in the Dada movement. But it is in 1926 that Magritte is drawn to the Surrealist ethos.

When he saw a reproduction of Giorgio De Chirico’s The Song of Love, it apparently had such a strong effect on him that he changed the direction of his work. He gave up doing extensive research and just painted and explored the subjects most interesting to him.

Magritte turned to creating the illusion of reality with an effective painterly style that still gives a surprising sense of normality but with images that are startlingly surreal. Like Dali, he moved away from the 'automatism' instigated by André Breton who was against the depiction of the real in surrealist painting.

Magritte lived and worked in Brussels and this let him freely experiment without being caught up directly in the flurry of different art movements in Paris. He had a quiet and methodical way of working and being away from the French capital was more suited to him. Although it was a long time before he had a solo exhibition in Paris, at the age of fifty, collectors in the United States embraced his work, as they had already done with Dali, and his role in the Surrealist pantheon was assured.

'Dali & Magritte: Two Surrealist Icons in Dialogue,' runs until February 9th 2020, at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.

A New MoMA: Museum of Modern Art Reopens in New York

Opening in New York, the luminous new expansion of the Museum of Modern Art. Glenn D. Lowry, the director of MoMA, talks to us about the ideas and philosophy behind the creation of the new galleries and art installations and why connecting the museum back to Midtown Manhattan was so important.

Filmed and directed by Franco Di Chiera. Creative Producer & Editor: Paul James McDonnell. Stills Photographer: Steven Choo.
Executive Producer: Jeanne-Marie Cilento.

Next episode we interview the architect Charles Renfro, partner in the award-winning American firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who designed the new extension.

Please tap the icon on the video to watch fullscreen. Cover picture of the performance studio, the first to be integrated into a major museum, photographed by Steven Choo for DAM. 

Jarel Zhang: Reboot and Rebirth in the Digital World

Jarel Zhang's SS20 urban uniform for surviving the busy streets of a metropolitan city with zippered pockets big enough to carry a hard drive. Main picture and cover for DAM by Yvonne Aeberhard Stutz/funkyforty.com

One of the highlights of Paris Fashion Week was the futuristic streetwear designed for a post-apocalyptic world by Jarel Zhang for Spring/Summer 2020. The collection was inspired by the notion of rebooting your life, like restarting a computer in the digital universe. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs for DAM by Yvonne Aeberhard Stutz


Although filmy and sheer, Jarel Zhang

 still manages to create a sense

of urban streetwear. Photo:

Yvonne Aeberhard Stutz/

funkyforty.com

UNDER a long swathe of lights hung like an aeroplane runway, Jarel Zhang presented his new collection in the atmospheric tunnel at the Faust nightclub, on the Rive Gauche Pont Alexander III, between the Grand Palais and Invalides in Paris.

This season, the designer's futuristic urban streetwear was inspired by a computer aesthetic, even the invitations were designed like a printout and the collection was called [CTRL_ALT_HOME]. Random computer-speak phrases were included like: "ignore non-existent files, never_prompt" or "rectify issue immediately to prevent data loss."

Zhang says the Spring/Summer 2020 collection began with the simple idea that rebooting a computer could symbolise a new start in life. When all else fails dealing with a piece of electronic equipment, he thought of the ubiquitous response: "have you tried turning it off and on again?"

The designer decided to take this "restarting" idea as his main theme, a metaphor for how human beings can reboot their lives from scratch after suffering pain and failure, and find a way to overcome seemingly insurmountable problems. "Could it be possible to 'restart' life without any memory to hold us back?" he asked. He saw the collection as a series of stages through digital life such as 'starting', 'functioning', 'virus attack' and finally 'programming' and 'restarting'.

"Using the digital world as a background we're going to contemplate the extreme actions human beings are capable of and attempt to convey the message that people can put an end to the suffering that destroys them and yearn for a new a life," the designer said. "Through this collection we want them to know that they can dare to click the reboot button and start all over again.''

Jarel Zhang says the SS2020 collection began with the idea that rebooting a computer could symbolise a new start in life

Pastel pink and asymmetric camouflage
to survive metropolitan madness.
Photo: Yvonne Aeberhard Stutz/
funkyforty.com

How does all of this translate to the clothes? Well the unisex designs looked created to do battle in the urban jungle with voluminous jackets and coats, designed with pockets for digital paraphernalia, aerodynamic sneakers and slick, geometric sunglasses. Comfortable yet protective streetwear that would see you through a demanding day in the digital metropolis.

All of Zhang's collections have a sporty look with designs that allow the wearer to move easily and quickly through an urban environment, shedding layers as the weather or air conditioning dictates.

Materials were lighter in texture and colour this season compared to the autumn collection, with a palette of pastels mixed with dashes of bright yellow and blue. The only pattern in the collection was a camouflage design. There were a wide range of billowing, roomy silhouettes with interesting structural details and tailoring techniques.

Jackets and tops were given a futuristic look with asymmetrical panels and combination of lacing, buttoning and zips with oversized pockets as built-in handbags. There were matching trousers and shirts (see image above) in pale pink with drawstring waists and contrasting panels in the camouflage design in light and dark blues, khaki and white.

The designs have a sporty ethos that allow easy movement through a teeming metropolis, shedding layers as the weather or air conditioning dictates

Shirt as jacket with a modern satchel
 for digital accoutrements. Photo:
Yvonne Aeberhard Stutz/
funkyforty.com

The long, loose shirt (see at left) in electric blue is worn like a jacket with a big collar, fitted around the neck, and long, almost batwing sleeves. Two, small bags are slung over the shoulder and worn like a contemporary satchel in Cerulean blue and black.

Long, black shorts are made of neoprene and have a big pocket at the front, that looks the right size to carry a hard drive. Zhang mixes generous proportions with contrasting accessories that add an edgy urbanism.

The designer originally founded his label in 2015 after completing his fashion studies in the United Kingdom. First he graduated with a degree from Northumbria University before going on to complete a post-graduate Masters degree in textile design at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Zhang showed his work during London Fashion Week and was later invited to show at New York Fashion Week before doing a presentation in Paris. Today, his collection is shown on the last day of fashion week, between Chanel and Louis Vuitton. Born near Shanghai, in China's Zhejiang province, his studio is still based there and his collections are produced in the same region.

Christian Siriano: An American Designer in Paris

Coco Rocha strikes a pose at the Christian Siriano SS20 show in Paris, as Alicia Silverstone, Shannon Purser, Karlie Kloss, Larsen Thompson and Leigh Lezark look on. Cover picture and photographs all by Elli Ioannou for DAM

American designer Christian Siriano brought his Spring/Summer 2020 collection to Paris for the first time. Inspired by Pop Art, the show was a vivid contrast to the pastel salons of the Hotel d'Evreux in the Place Vendôme and had a stellar frow including Shannon Purser, Alicia Silverstone and Karlie Kloss. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photography by Elli Ioannou
 

 Cindy Bruna wears a frothy, tulle gown
at the Hotel dEvreux in Paris

AMID the pale green and gold salons of the Hotel d'Evreux, an 18th-century mansion in the Place

Vendôme, Christiano Siriano presented his new collection for the first time in Paris.

The designer brought American razzmatazz with him as models Coco Rocha and Candy Bruna wore his exuberant evening gowns, striking poses that brought them to life on the runway, with whoops from the star-studded front row.

One of the standout winners of the Project Runway television series in 2008, Siriano is now a mentor on the show's new 17th season after its return to the Bravo network. The host of the show, model Karlie Kloss, was in the front row joined by Alicia Silverstone (who captured the Nineties fashion zeitgeist in the film Clueless) along with actors Shannon Purser, Larsen Thompson and Leigh Lezark.

Christian Siriano has worked hard to be taken seriously and has shown his collections at New York Fashion Week for more than a decade. He has dressed some of the United States most high profile women from Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey to Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie. But despite the celebrity, the designer has always been keen to cast a diverse range of models for his fashion shows.

"The collection was inspired by modern pop artists like Ashley Longshore and her whimsical and playful use of colour and texture"

A voluminous gown worn by Maria Borges
was one of the highlights
of Siriano's show

This season, the designer's Spring 2020 collection was inspired by New Orleans painter Ashley Longshore. At the New York show, there were enormous pastel and neon canvas portraits of Frida Kahlo and Lady Gaga on the runway at Manhattan's Gotham Hall, while the artist herself worked on the paintings.

Longshore's recreation of the pop culture portrait has made her well-known in the art world. Siriano sees her as a "modern day Warhol" and believes there is mutual inspiration between painters and designers.

In Paris, Christian Siriano brought a Pop Art sensibility to the collection, without the actual paintings, artist and artwork of New York. Instead, he let the buoyant clothes speak for themselves with their brilliant colour palette, including buttercup yellow tops and pants, shimmering long coats in silver, hot pink minidresses, layered tulle skirts and body hugging creations made of red, lip-shaped lace.

A gown with voluminous sleeves on model Maria Borges (see above) had a luminous colour combination of gold, aqua, azure and magenta. Mixed with the lavish designs were more reserved outfits such as gabardine, sea-Green jackets and shorts, black eveningwear jumpsuits, and dresses with one shoulder finished with long, glimmering fringes.

Siriano's brilliant colour palette included buttercup yellow, shimmering silver, hot pink and burgundy lace.

Lip-shaped lace were inspired by Pop Art
and Surrealism
 

"This season the collection was inspired by modern pop artists of today," said Christian Siriano. "Artist Ashley Longshore's whimsical and playful use of colour and texture help inspire the fabrication this season. Her women empowerment statements also inspire the silhouettes in the collection to celebrate the body and the women wearing them.

"Almost a hint of surrealism influenced by Jeff Koons series of work, Easyfun-Ethereal, moves throughout the collection with dramatic eye and lip print textiles used in unexpected ways. There is a focus on event dressing and eveningwear that is modern. I wanted the collection to feel playful, colorful, bright and romantic, but still powerful and exciting.”

The lip design was used for not only textured lace but both prints and asymmetrical dresses and tops and added to the extroverted part of the collection with its lamé greens, golds, pinks and rainbow stripes.

The collection included some menswear like Siriano's  strapless bustier, transparent blouses and metallaic green jackets worn with Bermuda shorts. While a neutral eye design print was on several pieces, most of the collection was in limpidly iridescent hues, especially the fuchsia minidresses.

"I wanted the collection to feel playful, colorful, bright and romantic, but still powerful and exciting.”

Sheer gowns in black seem
made for the red carpet

Christian Siriano started out a long way from the fashion world in New York. He grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, where he studied at Broadneck Senior High School before transferring to the Baltimore School for the Arts. The school allowed Siriano to choose fashion as his main subject and as he also studied ballet, this added to his interest in design. He began making clothes when he was thirteen, while working at a hair salon, and then designed the clothes for their annual exhibitions.

Siriano went on to study at the American InterContinental University in London and then interned at Vivienne Westwood, and later at Alexander McQueen. He returned to the US to live in New York City after graduating. Here he started working as a freelance make-up artist, making wedding gowns for private clients and as an intern for a short time at Marc Jacobs.

The designer was the youngest winner of Project Runway in 2008, which launched his career, and as part of the prize he was able to show a twelve-piece final collection at New York Fashion Week. When Siriano won the show's fourth season, it included a fashion spread in Elle magazine, a car and US$100,000 to start his own label.

Four years later, the first Christian Siriano flagship store opened in Manhattan's Nolita neighbourhood. His business continued to expand with his own fragrance, Silhouette, in 2014, and his work at Disney creating the costumes for the fairies, especially Zarina, in the animated film The Pirate Fairy. Siriano was also given the fashion world's stamp of approval when he was admitted to the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

Siriano studied at the American InterContinental University in London and interned at Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen

Christian Siriano celebrates after his first
Paris show with his models.
Photo: Kevin Tachman

Siriano has since become known for his extravagant ball gowns worn on the red carpet, his tailored sportswear and line of shoes and accessories.

Eyewear, home and beauty collections were all launched three years ago. A photographic retrospective of his work was published by Rizzoli Books in 2017, called Dresses to Dream About.

He was named “Designer of the Year” at the 2016 AAFA American Image Awards and won the Couture For A Cause “Designer of the Decade” award that same year. Siriano also collaborates on collections for a wide range of brands for both clothing and accessories. But the effervescent creations for his own label, like those in Paris, are at the heart of his work.

Tap photographs to see a full-screen slideshow of highlights from Christian Siriano's Paris show