Arthur Arbesser RTW Fall 2023
“I’m not an edgy or cool designer, I know it and I’m totally fine with that,” said Arthur Arbesser at his Milan atelier, which he opened Sunday for the first time to unveil his fall collection.
The designer is as blunt and practical about his work life as he is about clothing, having carved out an aesthetic that stands somewhere between demure bourgeois and artily off-kilter.
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His fall collection hinged on paintings by his great-great-grandfather Hermann von Koenigsbrunn, who would follow botanists and biologists on expeditions across Egypt, Sri Lanka and Greece in the 1850s. The landscapes graced shirtdresses, tunics, and balloon skirts, as well as light knit underpinnings layered beneath spaghetti dresses with pleated skirts in see-through organza that evoked a certain sensual flair.
They were juxtaposed to childlike prints of crackled tissue paper and of the traces left by sponge stamps, as if they were the result of a toddlers’ creativity workshop, Arbesser said. He plied a similar playful inventiveness in manipulating constructions, for draped metallic tops and midi frocks.
Lookbook imagery styled and shot by the ICTM collective were collages of models’ figurines glued to details of domestic environments. They heightened the naïf bent of the collection.
Launch Gallery: Arthur Arbesser RTW Fall 2023
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