June 18, 2017 |
This morning, Diesel Black Gold went co-ed. As in, men’s and women’s on the runway. I once asked Andreas Melbostad, the designer behind both collections, what his boy and girl were to each other. Sister and brother? Boyfriend and girlfriend? No, says Andreas, just very very good friends. Which, when you think about it, means that combining the two collections fits. They aren’t the same person, but they are in the same wheelhouse. They are inspired by the same things. And here, though I could be wrong, there was a bit of a play off between of city and country. Melbostad’s talked about that before because it’s his own split – he lives in New York but spends much of his year’s at the Diesel HQ far away in the Italian countryside. It came through for the girls in the plaid shirt dresses and almost homespun knits, with revealed stitches, clashed here with tech-y track pants and chunky platform boots. For the boys, a plaid shirt and t-shirt sat under a clean-lined lapel-less blazer, or a studded leather jacket. On that train of thought – I suppose this was really about layering. Diesel Black Gold is always known for it’s utilitarian bent, and there’s something about layering that’s useful. You can strip it off, or pile it on. And here, it also allowed for this opposition between a lean and full silhouette – clinging leggings, some in leather, at sat under boxy shorts, tight striped tops were worn under chunky anoraks. And for girls – slim-strapped parachute dresses were worn over joggers and long-sleeved tees. It all gives off this feeling that these are girls and boys who don’t spend their life thinking about how best to combine the pieces they have lying on their floor. They are girls and boys who just are.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
