Aganovich (Q2522)
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Aganovich is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Aganovich |
Aganovich is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor did not show this season’s collection on the runway because they plan—fingers crossed—to join the couture schedule in January. That decision left team Aganovich with some spare creative calories to play with.How did they choose to burn them? First, the collection itself, which was inspired by the corkscrew perspectives of Francis Bacon. Trenchcoats that were, in fact, cloaks with trompe l’oeil arms (a compulsive shoulder robe wearer’s dream) and pink shirts disjunctively draped with black ties incorporated to emerge halfway around the neck and directly through the collar were just two examples of Aganovich’s easy-to-wear but hard-not-to-look-twice-at practice.Without that show, though, there was still room for four other projects. In their truly lovely Bastille work space—all books, dogs, beautiful windows, and good tunes—hung a rack of sturdy patch-pocketed work jackets that were cut by Aganovich in Italian non-GM cotton drill woven by Bonotto in Italy and sewn by Bocage Avenir, a cooperative of seamstresses near Nantes. They plan to sell them via Kickstarter—and I plan to buy one. Project two was a T-shirt line—some of them double-face to give the effect of layering—produced with Dov Charney (yes,thatDov Charney), who post–American Apparel has started a new made-in-USA project that he named Los Angeles Apparel. Project three was a new perfume, named Let’s Murder the Moonshine, after the writing of F.T. Marinetti, which Nana said—only half-jokingly—was “meant to smell like a burning paint factory.” Thanks to the expertise of perfumer Arnaud Poulain, it smelled moreish rather than toxic. Finally, there were some completely loopy neckties made of combed linen that closely resembled human hair tied into braids—quite funny. The Aganovich crew references anarchism quite a lot, which is a little rich when you’re heading to couture—and yet their sincerity is evident as is their skill. And seriously, check out the Kickstarter jackets. They’re a bargain and beautiful, too.
6 March 2017
A reading of Sophie Calle’s stylized exercise in stalking,Suite Vénitienne, opened anAganovichshow that combined magisterial anguish with carefully corralled disarray. Our heroines began their pursuit in ghostly, raw calico: a slish-slashed double-hemmed dress trailed with threads and a second with extravagantly ruched and plucked waves of fabric on the arm. Each piece featured gathered, rib-cage-like panels of interwoven fold on the chest. The show went into black, then there was a fencing-esque look featuring a white jacket softly indented as if run over. Scarlet or black waves of paint were applied either to handsomely chaotic edging or painted flat on dresses that were then unfolded to break up the color. Every look was matched with flat monochrome leather winklepicker boots.There were strong jolts of back-in-time historical cherry-picking from these designers, who tend to look backward, including a riot of rough-hewn white ruffle that emerged from a soft black linen suit toward the end—an outfit perfect for some Puritan 18th-century governor gone wild. There was also a subtly asymmetric frock coat in a series of three lovely, red, archive-pattern Vanners silk jacquard pieces.The appeal of Aganovich is that they mine history through eyes fresh enough to make any implication of derivativeness redundant. Plus, while Paris is heavy on exquisitely pained moroseness (and for me Aganovich sits in this category), Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor are perhaps the most joyful participants in it. Very niche and very nice.
28 September 2016
Serendipity—a cocktail of Calvados, apple juice, champagne, and sugar, topped with a spriglet of mint—struck immediately before thisAganovichshow, courtesy of Colin Field, head bartender at the Ritz. Field, white-jacketed and mixologizing to the max, was in the atrium. But why? Brooke Taylor explained: “When we first came to Paris we would go to the bar and Colin would take care of us.”“We were so broke and damaged!” Nana Aganovich interjected.“Watching someone do something they are so good at is fantastic,” Taylor added. “And it educated us a little about luxury. Because Colin isn’t a flashy barman. He just loves doing something amazingly well and sharing it with you.”Aganovich and Taylor, the husband-and-wife team leading the house, added that they had invited Field—who is temporarily professionally homeless after the fire at the Ritz—to shake, muddle, and mix his magic as a celebration. “Coming to France was hard, but in the space of a year everything has fallen into place. Our team is together, our atelier is in place, and we are really together now,” the couple said, piecemeal.The fruits of that togetherness were visible in this dramatic, verve-filled, and overwhelmingly monochromatic collection (the exceptions were two dark green dresses and the green patch on the left elbow of an otherwise black one). There was plenty of historical referencing—18th-century full feminine skirts and masculine topcoats, as well as a biker jerkin that seemed a mite Jacobite—but the real narrative here was about an interplay between constraint and release.Knotted fastenings replaced stitching on seams that arced like a cracked fault line from shoulder to hem on black dresses of English silk jacquard, allowing white cotton undershirting to flash forth from below. The collars on those topcoats were grandiosely accentuated, buttressing the head in tandem with the strange strapping headpieces—they looked almost medical—worn by the models (who also tolerated inky black Bert and Ernie eyebrows). Fitted, ruffle-front jackets clashed with frothing tutus over remarkably unremarkable slim-fit pants. All the looks were incongruously anchored by Converse All Stars, most worn with contrasting colored lacing that reflected the laced backs of jackets, pant legs, and coats. One white look, two long shirtdresses of roughed up, papery Japanese velvet near the end, featured shoes with cosmetic uppers of collared waffle-cotton.
Sleeves were ruched to within an inch of their lives, and those shirtdresses—in oily linen or that velvet—cut seriously high at the side of each thigh. For sure the Serendipity plus Pete Drungle’s immersive, intoxicating piano accompaniment added to the atmosphere. Even without them, however, the dark romance of this collection—when Clarissa met Lovelace, with many knotted, subversive twists along the way—made it quite gripping to witness.
2 March 2016
This collection was an ode to Tiresias, a bird-communicating Greek soothsayer who blabbed divine secrets and was punished by being blinded then turned into a woman—as whom she was both praised as a priestess and pilloried as a prostitute (depending on who you read)—before eventually gender-reverting. Which is actually kind of now.The clothes themselves seemed more literal articulations of the 18th century (perhaps edging the cusp of the 19th) in terms of form: There were full-bodied frock coats with jauntily pointed tales, corsetry, an inclination toward ruffle-free yet jabot-like fullness at the neck, and a sense of tailoring pared back and made primitive. As anAganovichvirgin, to these eyes there also seemed a soft backdrop ofAckermann,Watanabe, andWestwoodhere: neither as debt nor derivation, just context.The collection was an ongoing argument between the tie (masculine trope) and the color pink (feminine trope). Both tropes were warped, abused, remixed, and blended. Batik-dyed linen was the outer layer against folded-back flashes of silk organza animal print, an inversion of hierarchy that saw the rougher fabric promoted to front of house with the snazzier pushed to the fringes. There were moments when the fumes pumping forth from the Viper smoke machine became a little too thick to see all the orchid undulations on offer or to appreciate the twists in the muted monochrome brocades. Yet there was clarity enough to appreciate this tightly packed meditation on wearable tumult.
30 September 2015
Volume is relative. A teacup skirt from a designer who specializes in body-con dresses might seem as radical as a flared pant where stovepipes are the norm. Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor have expended much effort proposing complicated, sweeping shapes, from multi-planed skirts to redingotes with tiers of bonus draping. Using this as a baseline, their latest collection qualified as compact—even if, by any other standard, it remained unapologetically theatrical.Defined waists offered a striking point of departure, but they came with a twist: The cinchers were soft rather than constricting. Aganovich said she and Taylor liked the challenge of using organic fabrics counterintuitively. Conversely, they manipulated decadent silks from Rubelli, the historic textile house in Venice, into larger forms, and accented them with floral brocades, sourced from the last Huguenot silk house in the U.K. To the designers' credit, heritage continues to be as fundamental as fit.There were other signs of reassessment. Because slim pants outnumbered skirts—which, in the past, bore the brunt of the load—the overall impression here was lighter and tighter. "A little volume now can have as much effect as before," noted Aganovich, pointing to a provocative flounce on the back of a coat in place of something more exaggerated. The expanded color scheme—the sunset hues and vibrant checks—gave a dandified lift to the looks, distancing them from previous seasons, where the dark drama often bordered on melancholy. In keeping with the tradition of naming their collections, the designers christened this one Fool, which could be interpreted in the historic sense of a jester or as the art of trickery. And indeed, Aganovich and Taylor often think like magicians, balancing performance (all those peaked cuffs and collars) with illusion (interior structures and closures). But enough with the parsing: This was their most wearable offering yet.
4 March 2015
This season marked the first time wife-and-husband design duo Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor worked with Maison Lesage, the ne plus ultra of embroidery ateliers. They developed a heart—halfway between organ and valentine—encircled by flowers, which was affixed to various garments immediately before the Aganovich show. But rather than suggesting sentimentality, the emblem signified one of several ways the designers chose to interpret the wordiconthis season. Another, of course, was the impactful scarlet, which straddles iconic associations with the sacred (Catholic cardinals) and the profane (Hollywood red carpets).Tailoring has always been central at Aganovich, and the designers expended much effort in working through new ways to reconfigure their coats (pretty portrait collars and back flounces), offset angles, and rebalance proportions. The real twist, though, came in the form of draping: What looked to be pleating on a skirt or jacket was, in fact, a series of technical tucks and drapes, often fastened by a hidden snap or two, to ultimately achieve the carved shape of a statue. Thankfully, organza, cotton, and an inky brocade lacked the weight of stone.Yet, "Who wears Aganovich?" was a question one pondered as each constructed piece impressed more than the last. Tilda Swinton's character fromOnly Lovers Left Alivewould be an eager customer; too bad she's a fictional vampire. Which perhaps explains the Aganovich conundrum: Its century-spanning beauty is impressive, but also consigns it precipitously close to costume, even if the cropped and cuffed "leggings" lift the looks beyond 19th-century dress. It's a risk the designers accept, and that, Aganovich insisted, makes "the pain" worthwhile. You don't achieve icon permanence by aiming for ordinary.
24 September 2014
If you walked past someone on the street wearing a full Aganovich look for fall, she would catch your eye. Maybe you'd notice the toothy shape of her upturned, elongated collar. Or the diagonal satin pleating spliced into her redingote. You might conclude she has some attachment to the past—certainly to period-style dressing—and on this count, you would be correct. Designer Nana Aganovich dresses this way herself and looked to 19th-century magicians for her latest collection. She referenced their formal costumes with a mix of oversize white piqué shirting and black vests, several with swooping hemlines. The ivory and noir brocades that dominated the show came from an old British tiemaker who descended from the Huguenots. The final dress—asymmetric, sliced open up the thigh—was accessorized with a top hat, placed slightly askew.Yet for all these obvious (often overworked) allusions, there were some interesting illusions that spoke to Aganovich's skill in the nonmagical art of cutting and sewing. Most of the jackets and shirting featured interior snap closures—as close as the designer could get to invisible. The sleeves of a silk crepe jacket were tacked at the elbows like permanent creasing. And tailored pieces that at first appeared generously proportioned were actually suiting facades with billowy backs. All this legerdemain results in a theatricality that attracts a particular crowd—and to be sure, it's not for everyone. Which is why a handful of cloak-style coats in solid black wool (all shown with boot-cut leggings) stood out most of all; the period details had been pared back and they felt believably modern. Now if only Aganovich could see this herself.
25 February 2014