Backstage at his show, Chris Gelinas spoke about escapism in fashion, especially now, and wanting to play with texture.
“Everything for me starts from an emotional point, and I wanted to capture that through volumes and textures and pleating and fringe and by adding a lot of processes to the materials to almost explode,” he explained. Sounds tricky, but not in Gelinas’ refined hand. For starters, he kept the palette dark and focused: mostly black and dark reds with one single floral print.
The first look was the perfect mood setter — a black, washed cotton twill jumpsuit with shearling arm band — it was sleek and textural. He followed with black fringed fil coupe looks ranging from a blazer and a coat to a memorable flounce-dress version.
Outerwear also had a moment; Gelinas rendered double-faced wool bouclé cocoon jackets with shearling collars as well as a shearling midlength coat. But it was the double-knit, broken-band evening dresses with siren hems exploding in fringe that made the most modern statements — that old problem of how to make evening glamorous yet sleek and minimal: solved. “In times like this, we need fashion for a bit of escapism…it can be very liberating,” he said.