Burberry and Supreme Collab; Lilia Litkovskaya Tells Industry to Stand With Ukraine; Valentino Creates Collectible Invitation Booklet; Russian Designer Dropped From PFW
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REIGN SUPREME: Talk of a Burberry-Supreme tie-up has been swirling on social media since January, and now it’s set for takeoff.
The American rapper ASAP Nast confirmed the speculation with a post of himself on Instagram wearing a denim jacket and trousers in Burberry’s signature check pattern with both brands’ logos.
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He tagged Supreme’s account, as well as that of Tremaine Emory, Supreme’s new creative director, who was appointed less than a month ago, and wrote: “We back let’s go!”
Burberry Sunday told WWD that the full collection will be revealed the coming week, either on Monday or Wednesday, on social media.
It’s likely Supreme will drop it on Thursday, the day before the Burberry fall 2022 ready-to-wear show in London. The company tends to release drops on a Thursday.
Following its high-profile 2017 collaboration with Louis Vuitton, the luxury world has been keen to embrace Supreme.
Last year alone, the street brand label released capsules with Emilio Pucci, Tiffany & Co. and Missoni. It has also teamed with Rimowa, Jean Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto and Junya Watanabe on additional collaborations.
Burberry is set to stage its fall runway show on Wednesday in London. The event will be the brand’s first runway show in front of a live audience in two years. — Tianwei Zhang
STANDING STRONG: As buyers and brands bustled to get their booths ready for the opening of the Tranoï trade show on Friday, Ukrainian designer Lilia Litkovskaya stood alone in front of a yellow and blue flag dotted with flowers, a laptop in front of her.
“We are here in Paris, with all my colleagues [represented] through QR codes. We [should] have been in New York Fashion Week, London Fashion Week or Paris Fashion Week but some aggressors decided [otherwise],” she said, likening Ukraine to a first responder protecting the European bloc and by the extension the world from suffering a similar fate.
As the sole Ukrainian designer to have reached Paris at this point, she wanted to ensure her fellow creatives are not forgotten. The QR codes, also collected on the ArtcodeUA Instagram account, link to the works and profiles of photographers, artists and designers.
Among them are Central Saint Martins graduate Masha Reva, an illustrator and fashion designer whose graduate collection focused on the 2014 events in Ukraine; Vita Kin, whose line draws from the traditional vyshyvanka dress; cold-weather outerwear specialists Ienki Ienki, and Anton Belinskiy, who had been showing in Paris until the pandemic and announced he had enlisted in a territorial defense unit in Kyiv.
What she expects from the industry is for it to use its platforms to speak out on the plight of Ukrainian civilians and push for peace. “Influencers who really have power with their audience, [all of] fashion society must tell the world what’s going on in Ukraine. Our people and our nation are showing they’re brave, our roots, our culture. Everything we have. Save our country, save everyone from our country,” she pleaded to her audience, which included Paris deputy mayors Olivia Polski, in charge of commerce, fashion and craftsmanship, and Frédéric Hocquard, who has tourism in his remit.
For the organizers of the Paris-based trade show, offering Litkovskaya a platform had been a natural decision. “We are affected by the situation. As an industry, because this will have long-ranging consequences, but most of all from a human point of view,” said Tranoï’s president Boris Provost, whose thoughts went to designer Milla Nova, slated to exhibit at the trade show but who is still currently in Ukraine.
“You are part of the family,” the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode’s executive president Pascal Morand told Litkovskaya somberly as she thanked him and representatives of the Paris city hall for coming. He lauded “her grace and her courage in this terrible moment,” and her actions to ensure that “the voice of Ukrainian fashion and creation continues to be heard.”
After fielding questions from journalists in person and over a broadcast, she pleaded with “everyone to stay with Ukraine, stand with Ukraine” by attending an anti-war demonstration on Saturday in Paris. — Lily Templeton
PINK POSTERITY: We’re all in need of a little inspiration and introspection in this mixed-up season, and Valentino has it in the form of a collectible booklet envisioned by designer Pierpaolo Piccioli and Canadian author, journalist and author Douglas Coupland, which is being included with each show invitation.
To create the 40 works inside — which reflect on the times — Piccioli tapped Coupland, who popularized the term “Generation X” in his 1991 novel and has been writing about mass culture and technology ever since. Printed pink-on-pink in the booklet, titled “Pink PP Seen by Douglas Coupland,” are sayings such as “Beauty has kind of become an act of rebellion,” “I miss my pre-internet brain” and “If you are afraid of being afraid you might as well be dead.”
“I wanted a little reflection moment, a little escapism,” Piccioli said of the power pink invitation.
How does it relate to the collection? TBD on Sunday…Piccioli made news on the couture runway in January by embracing a wider range of sizes and ages in his collection. “I wanted to delve into the idea that beauty has nothing to do with models; beauty is about humanity,” he said at the time. — Booth Moore
NO LONGER SHOWING: The Tuesday digital show of Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin will no longer be shown on the Paris Fashion Week platform, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode confirmed Sunday.
The deprogramming was an emergency measure in light of the fashion label’s silence on Ukraine, according to its president, Ralph Toledano.
“We have a firm stance against the initiative taken by the president of the Russian Federation. We have nothing against Russian [people], but we will not support or accept to have in our calendar those who support his position,” he said in a phone interview.
Valentin Yudashkin has shown intermittently at Paris Fashion Week for a number of years and was invited as a guest member in 2016.
The decision to remove the designer’s show from the calendar was not taken lightly or in haste, coming as businesses big and small have been altering or cutting ties with Russia.
“Our team did in-depth research [since the attack on Ukraine began], to see if he had distanced himself and what was his position in the Russian sphere. It became clear that he is an affiliate of the regime. As such, I consider that he doesn’t have a place in the calendar,” Toledano continued, noting that the fact Yudashkin had designed uniforms for the Russian military had only been one element among others.
Last week, the French federation called for the industry to “experience the shows…with solemnity, and in reflection of these dark hours” and has since asked its 110 members to contribute to the relief efforts for Ukraine.
Asked if this could affect other Russian designers who have been showing on the calendar, including Ulyana Sergeenko and Yanina Couture, Toledano pointed out that inclusion on the official schedules was decided by selection committees composed of federation members as well as industry experts.
“Until now, the sole criteria we considered was creativity and artistic interest of these candidates. We are confronted by a wholly novel situation. At our very small scale, we will be driven to consider this aspect, since we reject and combat as much as we can the initiative taken by the president of the Russian Federation,” he said, noting that due process would be done in order to ensure fairness as “all Russians can’t be blamed for the actions of the president of the Russian Federation.”
Toledano cautioned against the temptation of anti-Russian sentiment, as those who did “would be the replica of President Putin if we act like that. We have to be smarter than the other side,” he concluded. — Lily Templeton
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