The starting point for Christopher Esber’s fall collection was “Crash,” the 1996 erotic thriller by David Cronenberg.
Much of the — ahem — action was in and around vehicles, which led the Australian designer down a rabbit hole of musings on the relationship between technology and the body, cars and humans and back to the four-wheeled car itself.
Notions of comfort and being in a bubble seeped into the collection as enveloping, often circular shapes and textures.
To wit, a thick corduroy that had all the lushness of a really fine sable in hand, but none of the anti-fur implications, and a feathered silk georgette cut into a marabout-like fringe that climbed on skirts, dresses and even looked like a flurry of owl feathers in a black-white colorway.
You May Also Like
The influence of automotive design and racing gear turned the usually laid-back Esber woman overall sharper. Bold stripes of a patchworked dress played on car decoration, partial perforated effects were on a pencil skirt, and aerodynamic-inspired cutouts in fluid jersey numbers compounded the effect.
Standouts included a simple black blazer with seams that gave it a corseted, articulated vibe, and leather jackets with shawl collars with contrasting, removable linings. Left partly attached, the result skewed oddly regal.
Esber said he feels that even classics must have “10 percent that’s a bit off or a bit strange,” the kind of tweak that makes someone “stop scrolling and actually want to see it in real life, or touch it.”
It certainly made the showroom setting of the season ideal, although the designer said he’ll return to the Paris runways in September.