September 30, 2025 |
Within the Portzamparc Wing at Musée Bourdelle, Ellen Hodakova Larsson – fresh from her 2024 LVMH Prize win – bid adieu to last season’s slim, gothic mood, stepping instead into something softer, brighter and charged with confident bravado. Hodakova has always thrived in the unexpected, transforming the mundane into the marvellous (briefcases as mini dresses, mangled spoons as ball gowns and for AW25, an entire cello as ‘casual’ clothes). And here, in her SS26 collection, she continued that practice of curious assemblage with a sharp, poetic edge.
Calling the offering Conventional Collection 112509, ribs of steel strutted down stone steps as tops, frocks, skirts and hats similar to the Japanese kasa – a thousand umbrella bones remade as something akin to armour (and in one case, Edward Scissorhands-type claws). These were followed by three-dimensional skirts weighed down by the open pages of paperback books that swished between chapters with every step. Elsewhere, vintage handbags were spliced into bra tops and twinsets worn under Fair Isle knits cut with Romanian-style embroidered collars, pillow cases became frumpy cotton gowns and knit mittens were collaged into a micro minidress. Some button-up shirts had structurally shrugged shoulders, as if stuck in a permanently awkward state or perpetually saying “I don’t know, sorry”. At the end, passels of black zippers seemed to mimic fur while heaped belts signalled the eclectic layering of feathers, before finally the show closed with bulbous straw skirts and a sturdy, straw-woven dress. It read like archaeology – objects unearthed, dismantled and reformed into something tender yet unflinching. So very Hodakova.
Photography courtesy of Hodakova.
