Click images to enlarge.
With a front row so packed that one editor was given a chair so he wouldn’t fall off the end of the bench and another clinched to his seat with just half a leg, you could cut the suspense with a Swedish kitchen knife at Acne’s first womenswear show in Paris since the label left London Fashion Week last year. It’s the final step in an exclusification of Acne, which has been going on since the their early beginnings as a hip denim brand in 1996, and which reached its high point this season when it seemed that Jonny Johansson decided to turn Acne’s men’s show into an intimate presentation and generally downsize the exposure and inclusivity of his house. With an approach like that, a certain skill is required and Acne didn’t disappoint. The collection, which showed at Grand Palais, was the outcome of a collaboration with the Musée Galliera and photographer Katerina Jebb, which materialised in prints featured on dresses throughout. Combined with dynamic silhouettes ranging from prim 50s to masculine 70s, and some beautiful colour combinations centred around the blues, reds and yellows, it made for a captivating and really rather interesting collection, which certainly didn’t look out of place on a Parisian catwalk. Johansson’s never-ending passion for collaborations, discovery and cultural and artistic development (not least intellectually) is impressive and not dissimilar to the creative thirst of someone like Karl Lagerfeld. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder that Acne can just slide onto the sanctified Paris schedule with such ease. Looks like this is where they belong.
Text: Anders Christian Madsen
Photography: Mitchell Sams
