Christian Wijnants (Q2768)
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Christian Wijnants is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Christian Wijnants |
Christian Wijnants is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Christian Wijnants is in reset mode. After a two-year break—during which a sideline made him a collateral victim in a drama of money and murder known informally as the "Belgian Versace” scandal, followed by a retreat to Sri Lanka and a newfound dedication to yoga. He returned with a spring collection rooted in serenity. It was set to a soundtrack any yoga devotee would appreciate.In gilded salons overlooking the Arc de Triomphe, Wijnants described this outing as a “peaceful, personal experience.” A collection intended to enhance serenity and repose was defined by soft tailoring, forgiving shapes, flowing scarves and an overarching sense of ease.“Cliché as it sounds, I wanted to go back to how everything was slower during the pandemic,” he offered, adding, “I wanted to reconnect with a serenity in my life that I had not experienced in a long, long time.”The “less is more” mantra inspired the designer to rein in his hallmark hot color and prints in favor of organic textures like raffia —winningly on a deep-V dress or sleeveless top—topstitched stripes or organza printed and layered to create “perfectly imperfect” checked motifs. There was a newfound emphasis on shoulders, for example in white linen safari jackets, corsetry, summer knits or shirting constructed to sit back from the nape, just so. Sleeveless bombers were cut in Japanese cotton-coated organdy. Prints, though impressionistic, remained understated, in shades of gray punched up with dabs of copper, green or royal blue. The designer drew on the work of textile artist Mrinalini Mukherjee, whose work with cords was reiterated in pieces worked in organic crochet and macramé.In the front row were several clients dressed in the rich colors, prints and textile treatments that Wijnants has focused on for 22 years now. This collection may have been restrained by comparison, and while not everything connected, it was good to see him back in the game.
28 September 2024
Christian Wijnants set off in a few new directions for fall. Some of them were a complete departure.He switched things up on prints, for instance. Ever a fan of inner journeys, Wijnants sampled a couple of things spotted on Sunday rounds of museums and galleries and reworked them as suiting motifs. A mask, for example, turned up on a blue suit; another example was a motif extrapolated from a cabinet of curiosities exhibition by Wes Anderson that Wijnants had admired at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. “There were lots of things on my mood board; it was a little bit all over the place,” he said backstage postshow. “I like when you’re not even sure what something is, but it’s a little bit antique, and I love the idea of an old museum that’s been that way for a century.”It was an eclectic exercise, grounded by a deep dive into knitwear, notably with poetically and architecturally draped knits and hand-crocheted ensembles. Some, like the English ribbed halter top in the opening look, were sophisticated; some handily channeled artisanal without going full-on; and others seemed to whisper “stay in with a good book”—unless, of course, you want to step out while secretly feeling like you’re wearing pajamas. Wijnants also offered up some relaxed tailoring and wrapped pieces, winningly on a pine green sleeveless top.Elsewhere, the designer explored reptilian finishes and allusions in shiny fabrics, textured knits with slithery motifs and the tubular jersey fringe on mesh that he first revealed in his recent pre-collection (yes, it was therapeutic—snakes make him jittery). One of those dresses was topped by a new experiment, a coat made of a double-weave mohair in royal blue mixed with white. Wijnant’s base will likely snap that up too.
29 February 2020
By a quirk of fate, the Christian Wijnants Spring 2020 show took place the same day as the midnight marathon in Doha, Qatar, a women’s global track and field event. Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya won that race in 2 hours and 32 minutes. Instantly iconic shots show her holding her country’s flag behind her, wing-like. It was exactly the kind of moment Wijnants said he was trying to capture during a backstage conversation before his show just hours earlier.“I love escapism, but instead of choosing a place, I wanted to keep things vague with the idea of a flag and graphics, like the way you see them on winners at the Olympics,” Wijnants explained. He also cited his admiration for the California-based African-American artist Henry Taylor.Wijnants gamely used his talent as a colorist to make a case for pairing papaya with baby blue in his opening trouser suit, or putting a skirt with an asymmetric panel in that hue with a tangerine, black and white striped knit top. In a season spilling over with sequins, he offered up a trompe l’oeil print he created using bubble wrap, as well as real sequins for an abstracted leopard print on a sky blue ground. A sleeveless jacket with cropped pants looked cool and polished, as did a pair of two-tone halter dresses. Separates with ripple motifs and a series of maxi dresses offered up some convincing combinations, although the flowy theme could have withstood a stiff edit. Meanwhile, a hand-woven white shell and skirt ensemble was as pretty and polished a take on the crafts theme as this reviewer has seen this season. Graphic ebony earrings and loopy, wrapped hairdos flew the flag for cool, too.
28 September 2019
There are some seasons when you get the impression that everyone is singing from the same songbook. Such was the case this time around with Christian Wijnants, a very talented designer who seemed to want to push out of his comfort zone in several ways. In doing so, he ticked a lot of Fall’s trend boxes: oversize men’s suits, tartans, slouchy tailoring, checked overcoats, multilayered jackets, et cetera. Some of these were quite pretty, but it didn’t exactly feel like he was at ease.Wijnants has been quietly building his business for 16 years, to the point where he can now step things up a notch in terms of venue and capacity. This season, for the first time, he showed in the gilded 18th-century Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild. It’s hard to get grander.“With a location like this, I wanted the girls to be a little tougher—edgy and masculine,” the designer said during the countdown to his show. “I like what’s happening out there with androgynous looks, and I thought it would be nice to have a romantic collection with a tougher-looking girl. It adds a bit of mystery to the idea of nostalgia and lost memories.” He also added in a soundtrack commentary, pulled from horror movies—a throwback to his teenage years.Hewing masculine might have been a little too far out of Wijnants’s zone, inspiration-wise. If women—and there are legions of them—love Wijnants, it is because he has a flair for color and hand-prints, and above all a certain kind of reassuring, romantic-but-not-frilly aesthetic. Sure, he proved he can handle a collage moment in fashion better than many, delivering cable-knit/striped/floral/color-blocked numbers that require no effort to project into real life. A woman could wear those without looking kooky. His base will probably also thrill to the hand-painted prints, particularly on a bronze overcoat. Wijnants has the guts to go his own way, and he’s generally at his best when he’s not chasing a trend.
2 March 2019
American painter Alice Neel was the inspiration behind Christian Wijnants’s Pre-Fall collection; her whimsical color palette and the fresh energy of her brushstrokes appealed to the Belgian designer, whose expressive chromatic sensibility is a distinctive trait. The painterly abstract floral prints that graced a series of dresses and separates were made in-house, referencing the vibrant dynamic of Neel’s aesthetic.Color gave the collection a cohesive quality; bright shades of green, porcelain blue, and purple were offset by white and black touches. Prints and patterns were blended in artsy patchworks, gracing fluid, layered shapes; dresses were cut loose and easy, often with asymmetries emphasizing a dynamic sense of movement.Wijnants also tried his hand at more structured shapes. Tailoring counterbalanced the effortless ease he favors in a series of oversize masculine pantsuits in checked wool with strong shoulders and a straight cut. Worn either with matching palazzo pants or long skirts, they made for a cool proposition. Elsewhere, a more graphic theme of stripes played out as an alternative to florals; inspired by one of Neel’s intimate paintings, they looked fresh on an unfussy, graceful sweater-and–knitted skirt ensemble.
21 January 2019
A peripatetic at heart, Christian Wijnants is having a ball following his own path from ancient Persia to Asia. He’s also a gifted colorist, which is why his clothes—and his knits in particular—are a stealth choice for the woman who wants to cherry-pick certain aspects of today’s dominant trends—plaids, pink, florals—and make them her own.This season, the designer made a strong case for treating prints like color-blocking. Sometimes he tempered all that energy with solid pieces—a shiny burgundy skirt, a bright yellow windbreaker, a fuchsia overdress, turquoise trousers. His shiny pink trench hit the spot.But the main story is the hybridization of prints. A black, white, and green-dominant floral might get an asymmetrical sash in a larger blue-and-pink print, for example. Or there might be a triangular pink incursion on a breezy blue-and-green floral dress. Even more daring were the skirts with a split personality, say with pink, white, and blue on one side and orange and green on the other.He also showed a knack for taking Spring’s ubiquitous orange and making it work in a plaid iteration, either on security-bright tanks or burned-pumpkin pants. It’s not for wallflowers, but it worked. Not everyone can pull that off.
29 September 2018
Having explored Persia for several seasons, Christian Wijnants “decided to board a train to Japan,” as he quipped during a showroom interview. It’s not as farfetched as it sounds. The Belgian designer approaches his clothes as a vector for his emotions and moods, and while he has traveled to Japan recently, he didn’t want to go literal. Instead, he spent days browsing through textile museums letting his interest in fabrics and color be his guide. “I love the way the Japanese mix colors together,” he said. “You see very warm earthy colors that nonetheless have kind of an icy overtone.”The designer brought home lots of ideas for prints and more accessories—anise green gloves, for example—and used them to give his Pre-Spring collection extra dimension, with a boy-meets-girl vibe thrown in for good measure. Prints and knitwear are the core of Wijnants’s brand, and this is the season of animal prints, with leopard rendered tiny on a shiny slicker, blown up in blue and green on a short-sleeved trench or a high-neck dress, and so large on one blouse that the motif actually looked more flora than fauna. Ambiguity is the point.He also knew when to tone things down, offering, for example, ample, shirred cotton tops and dresses in white or blush tones, trouser-cut soft denim, and easy staples in laminated leather, such as in peacock blue trousers or a chocolate trench, which he said are designed to take on extra personality and suppleness with wear.
26 June 2018
Christian Wijnants could not host a presentation this season due to the coronavirus pandemic. In these extenuating circumstances, Vogue Runway has made an exception to its policy and is writing about this collection via photos and remote interviews.Despite upheaval and upset, Christian Wijnants says that lockdown revealed one upside: it let him reconnect, at last, with focus. He also decided to grow a mustache, just for fun. “This time was unique, because there was so much to tend to and no office chaos. I found that when you don’t have to multitask, your thoughts are less superficial,” the designer offered via Zoom from his studio in Antwerp.Transposing that attitude to his clothes, Wijnants said he would concentrate, now and in the future, on what’s essential. Having decided that continuity feels right, he put together a resort collection but tightened its scope. For every piece he wanted to do, he said he tried to get straight to the point, asking himself: “If I only had one of this, what should it look like?”He then went about zeroing in on a single answer while striving to make each piece as versatile, trans-seasonal, and long-lasting as possible. A buttonless trench with batwing sleeves and a billowing cut illustrated the designer’s current cocooning mood. Drop-shouldered, slouchy jackets, shirts, and a down-filled blanket coat made a bid for comfort, as did a handbag made from the same puffer material that Wijnants suggested might double as a pillow whenever commuting and travel start up again. A couple of sleeveless, twist-detail midi-dresses—one white, the other a black-and-green floral—looked like they could go just about anywhere.For the knitwear his base loves, the designer for the first time handled prints all on his own, looking to the art, objects, peonies, and even the ficus plant in his own home, and using felt highlighters to translate colors and patterns for often oversized, easy-to-layer pieces (some in denim) with an optimistic vibe. As one who has been wishing fashion would embrace structural change, Wijnants notes his new mantra is “fewer, stronger, better.” It suits him.
6 July 2020
Getting away from it all—or at least making his clients feel as if they’re getting away from it all—is one of Christian Wijnants’s strong suits.During a showroom visit, the designer said he was mixing up inspirations from the past and present. Those included references to Indian motifs and a sort of scrawl print that he referred to as “new handwriting.”Also new to this collection was a push into menswear, with separates—notably tubular and pared-down argyle knits—that women might want to crib.“I’d never thought of doing men’s before, really, but now is the right time,” the designer commented during a showroom visit. “There’s a bigger link than there was before.”The designer looked to India not just for colors, but also for draping and satins. “I love the idea of the way of dressing, draping; it’s a very natural way of enclosing the body,” he said.Some of the standout pieces include silver separates, woolen silks, and washing and overdyeing treatments that made separates look worn (but not overly so). A bird motif sailed through womens- and menswear the designer offered, nodding to the photography bookSâdusby Denis Rouvre. An association of warm colors, like putty, mustard, and brown, was a case in point. To that end the designer also used motifs across tailoring andflou.The suits are mainly for the bold, but here’s betting that Wijnants’s base snaps up the fringed numbers in a flash.
25 February 2020
By now, Christian Wijnants has spent enough time in Persia to go granular. Every season, his studio produces hundreds of prints, which are then sifted in order to come up with the season’s statements. For Fall, the designer went deeper into that trip, in pursuit of the girl he imagines might pick up things from every place she visits.To flesh out his muse, Wijnants focused on details of stitching and fabric development, and included more seasonal embellishments, notably fringe. “This time, it’s more eclectic with more information,” he said backstage before the show.Wijnants can’t resist a good kitchen experiment, so in addition to the enveloping pillow-like parkas and scarves, checks, and florals, he took one of his signature prints and lacquered it in wax to render it water-resistant. That, along with smocked print tops, exaggerated knit motifs spliced with denim, and caramel leather, counted among the collection’s strong points. Also noteworthy was a bronze brocade trench and a glazed russet biker jacket with blue shearling.Surprisingly, some of the designer’s signature ceramic-inspired prints married nicely with the season’s checkerboard motif. He also threw in a few wooden-heeled boots—his first official footwear collection. Those looked cool. Now, it just might be time to start exploring a few new horizons.
2 March 2018
After tweaking for a few seasons, Christian Wijnants has achieved harmony in his process and in-store: pre-collections and collections now run into one another, with timeless pieces and carryovers mixing easily with more experimental (and expensive) ones involving hand-embroidery, special prints, and the like.Since the fun, experimental pieces take more time to develop, the designer tends to keep them for Paris Fashion Week. The balance here is more “buy now, wear now”—aka the tubular knits and flowy separates that customers return for again and again, season after season.For Pre-Fall, the designer lingered on in Persia, offering his “traveler-explorers” easy, fluid pieces in cotton or silk and ceramic colors. New this season are ample, draped cotton-silk corduroy trousers, for example. “When you’re traveling, you just want freedom of movement,” the designer notes. To wit: pajama-inspired pieces and shirts that are easy yet done in stiffer silk than usual. The tunic tops are winning, as is a second-skin smocked top paired with technical fabric pants. Elsewhere, the designer has been toying with classical tie motifs, which appear blown-up and pixelated on jacquard knitwear—a hint of the more intricate knits the designer intends to explore in the season ahead.For the first time, Wijnants ventured into trenchcoats. A tobacco-color one is of the water-repellent variety; others are more decorative, a riff on last season’s silver lamé standout.Wijnants favors easy looks: soft, wooly knits with ample sleeves, soft denims and “indoor outerwear” are some of his most popular signatures. No wonder he never loses anyone along the way.
2 February 2018
Christian Wijnants is one designer who tends to think like an artist. Season after season, he’ll revisit a theme patiently and consistently to plumb whether there is anything else to say. Turns out, there’s always plenty. The collection Wijnants showed today, a mix of Resort and Summer, spun his “girls traveling through Persia” story a little further out. The designer added flourishes like tops proclaimingloveorforgivenessin Farsi. However you feel about the now-ubiquitous message trend, you’ve got to hand it to him: It’s a clever twist. Wijnants also seized on the idea of scarves, transposing them into skirts and dresses to breezy effect. In integrating long scarves on tops and dresses, he pushed a bourgeois construct into bohemian territory without going overboard. Prints inspired by ceramics and centuries-old illustrations have been a baseline for a few seasons now. With an extra shot of silver lamé, those became slightly more precious than before. A sky blue and silver trench in silk georgette with organza interfacing was a winner. In conversation, Wijnants always circles back to wanting to make clothes that women “really live in,” so he offered up a few extra thoughts in denim and tempered the prints by slipping them under overalls with an apron effect, for example, with a scarf doubling as a belt. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. The oversize plaids and maxed-out gingham might be a little harder to pull off. For city dwellers, most of Wijnants’s looks skew off-duty—the slingbacks festooned with garlands of Swarovski crystals made the overall effect slightly more Parisian.
2 October 2017
For the past year or so, Christian Wijnants has been streamlining his process, looking for flow. It’s working well for him: The layered looks in his March runway presentation made that his strongest collection to date, and business has picked up enough that he can look toward the future with a certain measure of serenity. In an industry not particularly known for calm, he might even be the most serene designer in Paris this week.For Resort, Wijnants continues his meanderings through an imaginary Persia, giving the concept a summery spin with silk floral prints that look as delicate as hand-painted porcelain. The designer noted that he’s been leafing through his Olivier Hartung book of street shots taken in Iran, turning again and again to its mix of architecture, public spaces, and humorous art—like quirky bird statues— for inspiration.Pretty, airy floral jacquards are lean and easily layered, with some knits incorporating wool and some not, the better to serve the designer’s fans wherever they may be next winter. Handkerchief-hemmed dresses, skirts, and cropped pants—in either florals or a burnished orange and black plaid—deftly sidestep the folklore trap. Seamless tubular knits—a house perennial—range from muted apricot to watery blue. Wijnants’s denim pieces, such as a windbreaker style and wide cropped pants, are proving a popular draw for younger clients. “I try to sort of capture every style of woman,” the designer explains. “It has to be easy, but the L.A. customer is not anything like the German one or the Japanese one.” Between his clothes and his burgeoning accessories line—with Marion Vidal for jewelry, and more shoes in the pipeline—it looks like Wijnants has found his flow.
27 June 2017
Of late, the Antwerp-based designer Christian Wijnants has been mulling over how to bring more coherence to a frenzied fashion cycle. His very logical solution: Incorporate pre-collection pieces into his main runway collection. The welcome result is a recognizable train of thought. This season, it runs through Persian destinations the designer has never visited in real life, but no matter.“The idea was a borderless world,” Wijnants commented without irony. “I wanted to take an imaginary trip and I have a lot of clients and friends who are originally from those countries. I find those women and cultures very inspiring.”The designer’s freshly dreamed-up land proved surprising, improbable, and also winning. Wijnants flexed his talents as a colorist in a freewheeling exploration of bright color and print with jacquard knits, silks, and nylons all layered one atop another. One highlight: a braised orange shearling worn over three iterations of prints—red shirt, blue skirt, green pants—that proved how a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. He also worked hand-frayed strips of yellow and black print into a faux-fur-style bomber.Elsewhere, the designer stuck to a more familiar register with baggy washed denims and oversize knits. Solid pieces, such as fuchsia trousers in organza, an accordion-pleated skirt in silver lamé, or a sharply tailored black coat let the show breathe easier. Backstage, the designer remarked that he’d had a lot of fun this season. “Right now, we’re seeing a lot of designers who are being successful by just doing their thing and not looking at trends,” he said. “I’m lucky because I have a great team, and we have the freedom to share a passion.” And to bring in more friends: The graffiti earrings by French designer Marion Vidal, a former classmate, will be sold alongside Wijnants’s fashion lineup.
4 March 2017
The Paris shows are right around the corner, and in a clever move Christian Wijnants has decided to cut through the clutter and embed his Pre-Fall collection with Fall offerings. “It seemed more logical to me, because the two collections sit side-by-side in the store so there needed to be harmony and flow,” Wijnants explained during a visit to his showroom. “The truth is, it’s actually one big season, and Pre-Fall sells so well, it would have been a pity not to show it on the runway.” Which also explains why comparatively few photos accompany this review.It’s a very smart move. What you’ll be seeing more of in a month or so includes the designer’s signature tubular and nubby knits in alpaca. As with his menswear, Persian inspirations headline the story, with traditional paisley and florals filtered through a contemporary hippie lens. Silk separates with blue, purple, fuchsia, or forest green prints are designed for layering. Denim options include a soft, washed-out jacket sporting a zip-pocket detail, and wide, cropped trousers with an asymmetrical fastening. On the outerwear front, there's a jacket in tightly packed bands of hand-frayed silk, an interesting and responsible stand-in for fur, and a paisley-printed puffer to keep the cold at bay.
30 January 2017
Christian Wijnantsthinks that, subconsciously, the artist Christo’sThe Floating Piers—the much-Instagrammed buoyant sculpture installed on Italy’s Lake Iseo this past summer—influenced his thinking for Spring. “I like the idea of nylon and creating a bit of a parachute,” said the designer, further interpreting Christo and his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, with their famous earlier works of billowing, fabric-wrapped buildings.With scale and graphic impact as his mandate, he ended up delivering a collection that paraded a panoply of aesthetic motifs, from monochrome to polka-dotted to floral printed. Wijnants’s best parts were long, curving-around-the-back windbreakers, which achieved his parachute-channeling goal and added an athleisurely kick. A caftan in resilient orange, similar to the color often used by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, was also a standout.Wijnants chose the song “Opus” by electronic musician Eric Prydz for his soundtrack. The track’s buildup is slow, but the drop is highly satisfying. When that crescendo broke over the runway, the tempo shift wasn’t quite as fulfilling; hyper-saturated prints of flora on silk tops, pleated knit skirts, and high-waisted trousers felt less convincing and a bit frenetic. But then again, each model had little lines of neon paint applied as makeup. Maybe she was going from art-world day job to nighttime rave. It wouldn’t be the first time.
30 September 2016
Christian Wijnantsput together the bulk of his Fall collection only after his Pre-fall offering was complete, leaving him just over a month to design treatments and materials that gave the impression of taking far longer. Thanks to the ongoing support of Swarovski, he grouped tiny black stones into a pattern of brushstrokes that seemed all the more fluid because of their sparkle. Repeated across a spectrum of ivory surfaces, from fine-gauge knit to brushed mohair, the effect felt like an artist’s study writ large.Wijnants provided many other outerwear entry points, all notably different from what exists elsewhere: the reversible shearlings in offbeat shades of jade and pumpkin, striped-down jackets with noticeably rounded raglan sleeves, and a sculpted ultramarine coat that presented as velvet but proved to be flocked neoprene.As for the rest of the collection, the Belgian designer continued from the same Pre-Fall narrative, in which he began with photos of his mother in the Swiss Alps and arrived at “mystery women” who are open-minded enough to top ribbed-knit underpinnings with a translucent latex tunic. Real-life women may need a bit of persuading. But such touches of novelty—see also the metallic blue hiking boots from WeberHodelFeder and the opera gloves in citron—certainly helped punch up his quieter fare.À la dernière minuteor long-planned, the appeal was there.
4 March 2016
Christian Wijnants has a proper explanation for why he took so long to provide his Pre-Fall images: He didn’t shoot the collection until after his showroom appointments, once buyers had placed their orders. While unconventional, this approach means that the looks will better align with what ends up in stores—including his newly opened Antwerp boutique. Otherwise, “It’s confusing to the end customer,” he believes. Thankfully, for this reviewer, Wijnants had prepared an iPad with outfit possibilities so the visit felt more fleshed out than seeing and feeling his corduroy tops and accordion-pleated skirts on racks. Still, it is interesting to compare the preliminary looks to these final ones, which suggest that buyers gravitated toward the Belgian designer’s quilted jacquard bombers and were sold on layering underpinning-type dresses over top knits—whether visibly striped or finely ribbed with velvet.For customers coming at the collection with piecemeal needs, the coats that began hairy and were treated with a sealant (Look 17 as well as the black-and-white versions) were compelling, if for no other reason than textural novelty; they could have been matted feathers or even lacquered paper. And his way of layering polos over turtlenecks—homespun yet handled with finesse—could be easily adapted to suit young and more mature women alike. In a moment when headgear isn’t considered an essential category, the bird beak crocheted and knitted caps offered an unpretentious accent. Wijnants, meanwhile, acknowledged his practical versus creative imperatives, saying, “What’s the point hanging clothes in stores and not selling them—yet I still want to create things new and exciting.” While his clothes don’t generate huge impact, his thoughtfulness was worth the wait.
1 February 2016
“I wanted something very airy, very light, very easy—and quite minimal as well,” saidChristian Wijnantsat his presentation today. Well, consider that job done. But . . . hold on . . . presentation? Wijnants has stepped off the runway. He said this was a result of the opening of his first flagship store, in Antwerp, a project that has been dominating his time.Hmm.Hmmmmm. Well, whatever the reason, the absence of a runway proved no greatly significant obstruction to the delivery of this collection. Wijnants said he had been thinking about Brancusi, and there was some correlation to that evident in the irregular lumpen-ness, hinting at distorted symmetry, in his fil coupe applications. More broadly though, this was an efficient but not especially uplifting compilation of contemporary fashion tropes. The strongest pieces included a tightly fringed kicky jumpsuit, and a blouse fronted with frayed panels of clothes that transformed the canvas pants obscured beneath them into the viable foundation of an evening look. Fil coupe suiting printed with a tonal monkey relief motif, frayed panel cotton viscose knit tees, some linen-lined scuba-foam hot pants, and fringing galore on denim-chambray separates were all fine and dandy. It was interesting, though, how the transplantation of this collection from runway to showroom rather sucked the oomph out of it. This collection was full of solidly tasteful left-field pieces, but there was not a great deal to get properly excited about here.
2 October 2015
Christian Wijnants arranged his collection within a Marais gallery so logically—palette progression, complementary groupings—that you might have believed you were in a store. Go figure, the Antwerp-based designer plans to open his first in his home city come early September. Conceived by Andreas Bozarth Fornell, Acne Studios' go-to retail architect, it will combine natural and artificial elements as a reflection of Wijnants' material focus.And because his Resort collection will begin to arrive just as he is settling in, Wijnants realized there needed to be enough variety for women new to his label—not to mention his expanding international market. As usual, many of his core pieces emerged from fabric development; a coat in linen bonded to scuba material deserves a mention for its form-retaining softness. Crochet flowers creeping up a shift dress floated off their striped surface. He used the resin sculptures of artist Rachel Whitehead as the starting point for a translucent, rose-hued hooded coat. As Wijnants highlighted his key looks—a fabric-blocked linen jacquard dress with a decorative fil coupe panel was notably attractive—he kept reinforcing that the elongated chemises looked as fresh with slouched pants as they did with bare legs. Similarly, the stripped-down kimono-style jackets conveyed uncompromising ease. The doodled prints, all created separately, looked surprisingly harmonious when united as a single outfit. Fabric sandals or printed heels? Wijnants believes silhouette dictates style. All these parts hold up nicely on their own, but impress even more when you see how they relate to each other—and when someone (Wijnants or those under his watch) is present as a guide. Which is why a stand-alone shop makes sense: He is eager to see his clothes altogether in a space he controls. Certainly from this vantage point, he's ready.
27 June 2015
Taking portraits of straitened Southern African farmers as inspiration for a show held in a Parisian palace, then issuing a release that praises "the random beauty of their haphazard, survivalist draping" seems a tad tone-deaf. Yet the Irish photographer Jackie Nickerson'sFarmseries does linger on the sculpture of its subjects' improvised clothing (as does her much-cited-in-menswearSapeurseries), and it is beautiful to behold.In fact, early in the show when Christian Wijnants showed a banana leaf motif, presented via print or mohair and viscose jacquard, those pieces appeared underwhelmingly contrived in comparison with his inspiration. Shorn of that comparison, however, they were texturally compelling. Mohair knit shorts, tank tops, and blankets came with Swarovski crystals embedded deep within to soften the glint. Cord-tied skirts were topped with billowing plastic coats. There was gingham. It was OK.This collection hit its stride when Wijnants took samples of all his previous ingredients to fashion a blocky topography of patchwork, stitch, and fringe. Those closing dresses made the conceit of the collection work: They honored the improvised spirit of Nickerson's subjects by bearing marks of exciting creative improvisation themselves.
5 March 2015
"See, it's like, if you were lost at sea, and these were all little rafts…" So said Christian Wijnants before his show this evening, explaining the inspiration behind the delicate crystal embroidery on an olive green bomber jacket. You had to laugh: Wijnants is such a matter-of-fact guy, it's always a delightful surprise to be reminded that there's a real goofball streak concealed by his mild manner. And you could say that this collection perfectly encapsulated both his goofiness and his mildness. Riffing on the theme of "the jungle," and imagining a girl lost therein, the designer stuck to relaxed, decorous silhouettes. The fabrications, meanwhile, were pretty eccentric. The key material here was a coated linen that had a rain-slicker sheen; Wijnants used the fabric a lot, in shorts and culottes and low-slung skirts, like the one in beige that made up half of a kind of latter-day safari suit. The latex in the collection had a similar iridescence but didn't seem nearly as wearable. Elsewhere, he was having fun with his embellishments, from the confetti-like embroidery to the Swarovski crystals crocheted into latex and leather looks in weird, rather amoeba-like shapes. Those shapes reappeared in the standout items here: the chain-link crochet knits. Wijnants is a master of knit, a real innovator, and that's the medium in which he frees himself to take big risks. That derring-do paid off this season in garments like the ivory-colored crocheted tank top, which had a really distinctive flair. It was just the right amount of crazy.
25 September 2014
Knitwear is Christian Wijnants' thing. In the decade since he launched his brand, he's developed a strong reputation for innovation—for example, with the shibori tie-dye knits that won him last year's Woolmark Prize. He has also attracted fresh investment of late, which he used to stage his first fashion show and debut a new Resort collection. "It's a strong between-season capsule, with about 50 percent knits that are easy to wear in places where it's hot, like California or Japan—and I hope that for Fall [that ratio] will be even more," the designer said. But he has a way with leather, too. Drawing inspiration from Southeast Asian nomadic tribes known as "sea gypsies," Wijnants offered a laminated leather top and sharp, cropped Perfectos in shimmery blues or green. Earthy colors made an appearance, too, in blocks of mustard or rust set against hand-drawn sailor stripes on a fine-gauge linen wool knit. A collage print based on the work of artist Peter Doig cropped up on a long silk chiffon tunic or got turned into confetti and sprinkled over a sleeveless shift. Wijnants also shredded that fabric and reworked it as a tank top and a chunky cardigan with the help of a family of artisans in Bosnia, where the hand-knitting tradition remains strong. "They came and found me," the designer said, adding that their techniques are a source of constant surprise. "For me that's the whole point, to create things that are different but also authentic and sincere." It's not hard to imagine these cardigans becoming a favorite beach cover-up, but they'll work best on a build that's seriously long and lean.
26 June 2014
Christian Wijnants began to come into his own this evening. This wasn't a collection that made you want to stand up and applaud, but it had all the makings of what a Wijnants collection should be: a painterly palette, relaxed yet elevated silhouettes, and lots of textural interest—particularly in the designer's signature innovative knits. Per the latter, Wijnants had some really great examples on the runway this season, a relief after he almost totally eschewed knitwear last time out. Black, graphic gray, and white 3-D intarsias were highlights here, as were the variegated knit fisherman's sweaters. There was a similar collage effect at work in his silk print dresses, the best of which had the patchwork look of quilts. Speaking after the show, Wijnants said he had, in fact, devoted serious consideration to blankets of all kinds, hence the fuzzy, blanket-y mohair sport shorts and tees and the peak-collar blanket coats. There were also quilted minidresses and rolled-up trousers, though you do wonder how viable those looks would be on women with nonmodel bodies. All in all, though, this collection marked a real leap forward for Wijnants; it felt like a wardrobe, and it articulated a reasonably specific and coherent point of view. Plus, you've just got to admire a designer who understands the modern, stressed-out woman's desire to crawl under some lovely blankets and get some sleep.
26 February 2014
This evening's Christian Wijnants show left you with a sense of gnawing dissatisfaction. Not because he lacks for ideas or talent, but rather because he patently has the goods, and this seemed a missed opportunity for a breakthrough collection. Wijnants' concept was rich: He was paying homage to the Islamic women in Somalia who play basketball, in transgression of religious custom and at risk to their own lives. And the designer took the right elements from that reference, mixing up traditional African prints and sport-influenced silhouettes and graphics, and elaborating a more abstract theme involving concealment and exposure. That resulted in a clutch of very strong pieces: His drooped basketball shorts are among the cooler looks to appear thus far on a catwalk for Spring, and his sheer printed dresses and anoraks had a real poetry. But the looks never properly cohered. It was hard to figure out exactly how Wijnants was getting in his own way. The styling was an issue, frankly, and he almost completely eschewed his signature technical knits, which was something akin to making a collection with one hand tied behind his back. (Such is Wijnants' way with knitwear that he was, just last season, awarded the Woolmark Prize as a result of it.) Both those qualms are rather easily addressed. The bigger issue may be that Wijnants has yet to summon the nerve to meet his formidable potential. Last season was a more coherent and, in some ways, ambitious outing. But given this designer's keen intellectual gifts and his remarkable technical prowess, you really have to demand he keep pushing.
25 September 2013
Not quite two weeks ago, Antwerp-based designer Christian Wijnants took home the ultra-prestigious International Woolmark Prize, an award that counts Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld among its winners. In some ways, Wijnants was a surprising choice—he's anything but a showy designer. But as today's collection proved, a great deal of thought, and not a little poetry, goes into the making of his clothes. Wijnants opened with two knit wool looks that undoubtedly helped land him the Woolmark Prize: a loose cardigan and a funnel-neck sweater, both featuring an intriguing circular knit and the incorporation of varied knit gauges. That's technical stuff, but the sculptural effect transcended the technique. Wijnants repeated those looks, or elaborations of them, throughout this collection; some of the punchiest pieces found him shibori-dying funnel-neck dresses and coat-length cardigans, to graphic effect.Those knit pieces weren't the only standouts on Wijnants' runway. The designer's silk-fringed coats and jackets had a similarly expressive quality, and everything in his mottled black and white jacquard was a winner, in particular a cocoon-ish coat with cropped sleeves. The jacquard, Wijnants explained after the show, was meant to conjure the craggy look of melting snow; likewise, the well-judged bursts of color here were inspired, he said, by the experience of engaging with nature's own surprising palette while out mountain climbing. That point of view came through most clearly in the serenity of the collection—there was a sense of ease, and a sense of space. The only quibbles were Wijnants' emphasis on shorts that felt a little too summery, and more generally, his reluctance to give a really defined silhouette to the pieces that weren't knit. Overall, though, these clothes were compelling and fresh.
27 February 2013