Nihl serves as a vitrine for Neil Grotzinger’s preoccupations and obsessions. This time round, it was tactility which occupied the designer’s ideas. Extra particularly, how one can evoke the sense of contact with out providing an abundance of texture.

Grotzinger is an avid beader, and every season has included a run of intricate hand-made items. This fall lineup was the primary that didn’t characteristic one. “How do I nonetheless make a sensorially satisfying assortment with out it?” Grotzinger requested themself, finally falling right into a rabbit gap of “hyper-sensorial and tactile obsession.”

A lot of the gathering was constructed in silk charmeuse printed with pictures Grotzinger has taken throughout travels or commutes. There was a picture of material bolts sitting at a retailer positioned on a halter gown and skirt, plus floral separates wherein the flowers come from hand-tied bouquets sitting at a market. Skimpy skirts, body-hugging jackets and slinky blouses have been printed with photos of chandeliers taken in Las Vegas (“these monikers of sophistication” that turn into cheesy due to their abundance) or cement flooring or chipped wood panels. There was additionally an ingenious pair of denims with a panel connecting each legs: “I wished to make a skort, however didn’t need it to be concealing of the crotch or be a modesty garment,” stated the designer, “I wished to have a body the place it’s apparent you’re supposed to note that area.” It was all some form of perverted trompe l’oeil the place nothing is admittedly what it’s—this assortment, one can think about, the artist René Magritte would’ve gotten a kick out of.

“Why do I really feel like I want an image of this?” was a query Grotzinger wished to reply. The higher one: Why do they really feel the necessity to put a brick wall on their physique? The spring collections featured an abundance of trash references on the runways. There have been trash bag-like materials draped into attire or skirts and duck tape and cardboard particulars. “Have you ever seen, everybody needs to be trash!” stated Grotzinger. This was one other certainly one of their preoccupations this season, which fed right into a recurring fixation on the juxtaposition of “sleekness and filth.” This explains why soiled sidewalks have been printed on clear charmeuse attire, and why that Las Vegas model of vulgar opulence was long-established into prim Park Avenue-ready silhouettes.

Probably the most engrossing manifestation of this concept, nonetheless, was the measured tussle between Grotzinger’s solid and their silhouettes: Wispy materials and delicate kinds positioned on muscular our bodies, the fashions exuding an aggressive masculinity whereas strolling in strappy sandals and mini skirts. At first look, the distinction was apparent and simple, however the nuance got here from Grotzinger’s thought of inserting sleekness towards filth. Why is it that the femme is taken into account correct and the masculine coarse? Most significantly: Why is it that it’s jarring to see dainty garments positioned towards masc our bodies? As a result of it denotes queerness. Is queer the filth to the sleekness of heteronormalcy? One other wormhole of Grotzinger’s to take us by way of, maybe subsequent season.