With its protective goggles and otherworldly mien, Anne Sofie Madsen’s summer collection picked up where the Danish designer left off in the fall, exploring the idea of an “unknown future and unrecognizable past,” as she described after the show.
Stepping out of her Stargate of inspirations were a dress, its inner structure outlined in white tape — the rationale would be elegant economy in design fit for the Space Age; coveralls that would look great on a space station’s staff, and a shell suit that tapped the ubiquitous sports vein but ended up feeling like a fashion-forward flight suit.
Fabrics went from the coarse weave of natural fibers to the techy gleam of man-made materials. A directional splatter of trailing crystals and hanging threads imparted the idea of speed, as did the pattern woven into the fabric of a black dress or the strips forming a destructured top. The cast of male and female models spoke of universality in designs highlighting the human body structure — those corsetting designs, a coat crossing over to close in the masculine and feminine way.
There was an indescribable Eighties vibe but that would be projecting ideas seen elsewhere this season. A genre rule says that successful science fiction stems from a divergence from the known past into one of many possible futures. Madsen’s future is more definite: clothes you’d anticipate wanting to wear.