March 12, 2025 |
Kiko Kostadinov’s AW25 womenswear show felt like a love letter to the restless, free-spirited women of Paris’s Left Bank. Inspired by the wild nights and poetic abandon of bohemian Australian dancer Vali Myers – who became a cornerstone amongst the French capital’s most beatnik circles in the 1950s – as well as Ed Van Der Elksen’s Love on the Left Bank (1956), the collection captured that in-between space – between night and morning, composure and liberation. “Staying up all night, undressing, drinking champagne and galavanting bravely through the city as the sun rises, just a topcoat thrown over a slip,” Laura and Deanna Fanning mused in the show notes, describing a scenario in which this season’s Kiko girl might find herself.
Models moved with a rakish energy, their silhouettes shifting between structured and undone, as if they had thrown on yesterday’s clothes in the haze of the early morning. Lingerie elements were transformed into something subversive and powerful: pointed brassieres and crinolines reimagined as stiff peplums, slip dresses with abstract paisley appliqués clinging to the body. Menswear tropes were bent to a woman’s will – pastel-striped shirting cinched at the waist with rope ties evoking the thrifted, chaotic yet considered layering of Teddy Girls and tomboys, while pinstripe suits featured adjustable hems and unexpected pony hair compartments. The collection’s textures – knitted mohair, moleskin, alpaca and mesh – mirrored the muse’s restless spirit, embodying that raw and rebellious mood.
Accessories spoke to a life in motion: medical doctor’s bags, crystal earrings and modular thigh-high boots that zipped down into flats. Japanese denim pieces, hand-painted with splattered motifs, hinted at nights spent dancing until dawn. It was Kostadinov’s most sensual womenswear collection yet – an ode to the art of dressing up, dressing down and everything in between.
Photography courtesy of Kiko Kostadinov.
