Walter Van Beirendonck’s SS26 show was something like a time-warped technicolour tantrum – one foot in a paint-splattered atelier, the other boot-deep in a parallel realm. With starry eyes pried open – glittering, winking – the collection pulled references from 18th-century boyhood, glitchy family portraits and the sartorial remnants of artists’ smocks, then spliced them together in an Anna Piaggi-esque clash and flash.
Faux-fur charcoal cuffs ballooned at the wrist. Military boots sprouted tentacular, chunky soles in ivory, sky-blue and black. Elsewhere, latex tuxes and candy-striped trousers shared the runway with skewed photo prints and prismatic tailoring. Picture this: eye-widening skeleton suits in a Bowie-Flemish textile hybrid. Still, there was an unmistakable sensitivity beneath the theatrics – either in the childhood photos, pixelated and buzzing through techno-fabric static, or in Beirendonck’s pierced Stephen Jones bowler hats, blooming with flower pins.
It was maximalism at its most meticulous – brutality finessed and brightly distorted. Pockets grew to macro proportions, buttons were masked in silk, collars frayed into featherlight fuzz. If the world has gone dark, WVB wants you to wear your delusional optimism, and wear it well. Preferably with paper petals, clown trousers, amulets and starry eyes, always.
Photography courtesy of Walter Van Beirendonck.
