Sies Marjan (Q7904)
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| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Sies Marjan |
No description defined |
Statements
2016
creative director
Later this month, New York’s Guggenheim Museum will host Rem Koolhaas’sCountryside: The Futureexhibition. The exhibit is a radical break from the fine art displays typically housed inside the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda. Instead of art, per se, it will exhibit scientific and cultural research collected by Koolhaas and his AMO team relating to the broad idea of the countryside and all of its functions. Sies Marjan is one of the exhibition’s sponsors, and to mark the partnership between the brand, the museum, and Koolhaas, creative director Sander Lak themed his fall 2020 collection around ideas of the countryside. Like Koolhaas, Lak is more of a rationalist than an emotionalist and performed his own research into the meaning of the countryside as it relates to fashion.After a yearlong deep dive into the broadest notions of the theme, Lak had done enough research of his own to fill the Guggenheim thrice over. He went down material paths, collaborating with Cornell University on plant-dyeing techniques that produced the floral patterns in the collection through hammering leaves directly onto fiber. A Dutch artist, Claudy Jongstra, lent her sustainable wool material made from sheeps’ sheddings to shaggy blue-green vests and blankets. A raffia-like material on a black top is actually made from plant roots engineered by artist Diana Scherer to grow in specific patterns. These natural textile developments lent a beautiful connection to the Earth within Lak’s collection. He continued this rawness in his produced fabrics by screen-printing a gold film onto cotton twills and a mossy fil coupe.But he wasn’t done there. Over the year he researched this collection, he began to engage with the philosophical idea of a countryside in intense and contradictory ways. (He also firmly put his foot down from falling into pastoral tropes. No straw hats or little fruit prints here!) Vast plains are workspaces for physical labor and functional garments, hence the French worker jumpsuits with double plastic zippers that Lak made in Sun Yellow and Holland orange. The countryside is also a through land, the veins of connectivity between cities, where precious items are transported wrapped in hearty blankets and industrial textiles. Enter the flecked wool wraps, plasticky yellow puff coats, and gigantic carryall backpacks.
The country is also our connection to nature (raw pearl earrings made in collaboration with Marlo Laz) and an idyll from high-society life (a Marie Antoinette–inspired toile slashed into a double-layer slip dress). There are also Northern Irish fisherman sweaters and Guernsey knits in a custom Sies Marjan stitch. All this is rooted to the runway with actual Dutch clogs on men—Lak jokes that he wanted to mark his heritage in the most obvious way—and iterations on the traditional shoe for women. The countryside is also often a borderland, but there was no hierarchy or separation between the many cultures Lak pulled from in the collection.
10 February 2020
Would you have guessed that Sander Lak is a cinephile? And that he takes as much interest in cinematography and film scores as storyline, cast, and costumes? He loves the idea of directing movies so much that, for a brief moment this fall, he said he almost considered giving up his label.Thankfully he didn’t, as the Sies Marjan sensibility on color, texture, and languid luxury has cultivated a diverse following of women—and now men—who would have difficulty finding anything similar. Moreover, Lak realized he could indulge his cinematic impulses by filling this collection with sartorial details that would, in his mind, evoke characters in a period piece. “It was all about being a time traveler—not in real history but in cinema history,” he explained from a Paris showroom. “We all put the sauce of our time onto [films], so I was thinking, what if the sauce is Sies Marjan.”Thus, shapes of pockets and finishings that can be traced back to military garments in films as diverse in decade as Barry Lyndon and the recently Oscar-nominated 1917, or a mood that takes cues from the style of Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. As Lak gave his annotations, it became clear that his source material amounted to an expanded repertoire of outerwear and knits, whether leather coats that swung ’70s or “medieval” rustic pattern-blocked sweaters.To round out the intense chartreuse, crisp blue, and deep burgundy that starred in this Sies Marjan palette, he developed a number of patterned textiles that were deliberately synthetic (the optic ’60s motif), delicate (a double-faced fabric bursting with tiny loops), and filmy (see the coated linen trench with marbling effect). These fabrics boosted the visual impact, but Lak is one of the only designers out there who can seduce with a jersey ensemble. The beauty of his vision emerges not from a strong statement piece, but a tactile total look. Top-to-toe ensembles are shaping up to be a trend this season, which people in the future might recognize as an ingredient in the sauce of 2020.Lak hinted that he recently worked on costumes for a villain appearing in a superhero movie. They may or may not make it to the screen, but if they do, he says people who know Sies Marjan will instantly recognize the clothes as his. It’s not the director’s seat, but it’s a start.
17 January 2020
Not a single platform shoe walked through downtown Manhattan’s Surrogate’s Courthouse today for Sies Marjan’s Spring 2020 show. That’s saying a lot for the designer who stomped his way into New York fashion four years ago with an irreverent sense of quirkiness that was all high shoes, shrugged-off shearlings, and relaxed cool separates. Instead, designer Sander Lak offered embossed croc riding boots or saucy little kitten-heeled sandals with claw-like leather straps. Why the sea change? As Lak told it during a preview of his collection, he wanted to move away from his more idiosyncratic pieces and try out an earnest, pure, genuine beauty. This collection, then, was about clothes intended to radiate pure luxury: sort of Upper East Side by way of the Rive Gauche. Irony, Lak said, was in his past.But it was sort of ironic when Lak acknowledged that time was the greatest luxury, and he had little of it. Because of ready-to-wear production schedules—and the fact that he just showed a menswear and see-now-buy-now collection in Paris this June—Lak could not bring the couture standards he so wanted to his RTW collection. Instead, he had to be clever and find new ways to get the look of timelessness in, say, eight to 12 weeks. The result was quite a lot of subversion. His most compelling takes were his faux animal prints, made by embossing croc scales onto duchesse satin or printing snakeskin onto silk. Cut into trenches or wrap skirts, these fabrics could read a little stiff at times, but you have to give Lak credit for pushing the boundaries of his textiles and trying new things. Elsewhere, he draped denim into bias dresses, wrapped scarves around the body to make elegant tops, and paired cute square-neck, button-up tanks with pants like a modern millennial suit.In Lak’s most uncompromisingly rich palette yet—the reds are inspired by the high sheen of nail polish while the green is called “Riddler Green”—the collection was full throttle in many ways, but maybe not in the uncompromisingly lovely, unfussy, anti-reality-TV way he intended. It’s, well, ironic that these flashy clothes will be exactly what the It people of 2020 will want to wear to be seen in, perpetuating a cycle of digital consumption. It’s ironic, too, that much of this show was staged to be ideal social media fodder, with models posing and twirling, all coming to a close with the boom and hiss of a confetti cannon.
The biggest irony, though, is that the azure silk dress—Look 2—is one of the loveliest garments of the week, the sort of thing you would fawn over for hours on the hanger, with a draped cowl neck and sporty racerback. It has an earnestness of design and a richness of taste that doesn’t need much extra fuss or flair.
9 September 2019
Sander Lak made his official menswear debut from an upper hall of the Opéra Bastille, where the stunning view out to Paris was nearly panoramic. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that today’s show also marked his first outside of New York, where he is now among the brightest stars of the city’s Fashion Week. Scheduled after Loewe and before Thom Browne, Lak presented both the men’s Fall capsule, now available to buy; the new Spring collection; plus some womenswear—and if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume Sies Marjan has been on the Paris calendar all along. “There’s an elevation and tougher competitive spirit in Paris; but in the end, I was just thinking about what is the best work I can make—the most beautiful version of whatever it is I’m trying to translate,” he said, with impressive composure.That “whatever” was expressed by Erykah Badu’s “I Want You,” an extra-long track from 2003 that oozes anxious longing and intensifying soul. It could also be felt in rounded expanses of male décolleté, outerwear spanning skin tones, knitwear underpinnings and tied waists that could be undone with a single pull. That “whatever” was Lak addressing male sexuality in a highly nuanced way. “What can you show of the male body that isn’t necessarily porn or sex or gay or straight?” he said. “It’s this idea of nudity while fully dressed.”In parallel, though, he also seemed determined to give the pieces a more elevated positioning. Chromatic leather jackets—some embossed with a croc effect—unstructured trench coats in deep hues, and sensuous constructions of silk not unlike his women’s designs got this point across.Lak, in any case, wasn’t making a radical statement for this coming out so much as a deeply personal one. “I put everything into my work, and it’s about having to expose yourself.” It’s rare to hear a designer discuss his or her own emotional vulnerability in the moments before or after a show; and yet this is what gives Sies Marjan a resonance beyond his sumptuous explorations of texture or color.
22 June 2019
Stepping into the darkened space where today’s Sies Marjan show took place felt rather like entering a mystic’s tent. Angled spotlights drifted in slow circles around the room and the black felt carpet was flecked with what resembled glitter, but was revealed to be 3 million tiny Swarovski crystals. Minutes before the first model appeared, a dozen attendants armed with torn plastic bags flooded the runway, pouring out handfuls of glimmering beads and scattering them freely through the air, as one might throw bread crumbs to hungry pigeons. (“This is luxury,” one editor observed wryly).Backstage, Sander Lak was in an ebullient mood (and careful to note that all crystals would be duly recycled). “This show was about love and falling in love,” he said. The designer wanted to work in romance clichés—hence all the sparkle—then dive into a deeper exploration of a relationship’s natural course.Lak was speaking effectively of his relationship to Sies Marjan, which is now in its seventh season. Once the honeymoon phase has passed, after all, the hard work must begin. “I really challenged myself,” he said. Much of that challenge was adding new tools to his kit. “I was totally over neon, but I wanted this season to grab it again and see if I could make myself fall in love with it again,” he said. “We used a lot of lace too, and I hate lace, I never liked lace. But I really liked the idea of how can I make myself fall in love with this thing that’s not something I organically go toward.”Despite this uphill battle, Fall felt lighter and looser on the whole. See those beautiful twisted silk dresses, entwined with delicate Swarovski crystal mesh. Or the kooky magpie mash-up on two experimental lace numbers, patch-worked from a fresh panoply of candy colors (lace, it turns out, works in Lak’s favor). “I’m always very, very strict with my colors, but I really opened up and tried to use things that are not necessarily the absolute shade I wanted,” he said, “to let it flow and grow into a loving sort of thing.”There were elements that spoke to this maturation—that sharp three-piece suit cut entirely from midnight blue leather, along with its aubergine twin, plus the head-swiveling inclusion of a single black dress. “Black is something I’m not comfortable with at all in clothes,” said Lak. “That was the hardest dress to make.” His solution: a hammered matte black satin with a bit of grain to it.
Lak inverted the pleats and stuck the seams on the outside to add dimension, then created the exact same dress in a soft wash of bleeding pastels. In other words, he stepped out of his comfort zone, but not too far from home.
10 February 2019
Sander Lak’s sixth Sies Marjan collection revealed a noteworthy advance in the brand’s short history. Until now, inventive color usage has been the designer’s primary calling card. But today’s show resonated deeper than the surface palette. Said Lak, “This one was emotionally intense . . . my mother [Marjan] was in the show, as were friends from college, new friends, old friends, people I work with, and models that we love.” (The casting was great.) He added, “You know, my stepdad said he thought this was my most mature collection to date.”There was some truth to that, with a resultant sense of both anchoring—Lak moved around a lot growing up and said he’s only now “experiencing what it is to be home”—and expansion. Texture, like life itself as it goes on, became more varied—painted leathers, washed cottons, and croc-mimicking plastics were all pieced in. An expressive cityscape print rose up; it was Lak’s most literal motif yet. The silhouettes and shapes were broadened, too, with a fuller menswear component (see Presley Gerber’s red-hot bowling shirt and cargo short look for a highlight), more knits, more blazers, and more general confidence in terms of forging ahead.It did not work 100 percent of the time. Here and there, things got complicated, like with a long-sleeved collared shirt that had weighty, squiggly bunching in the middle, or with a pin-striped cropped jacket over a belted panel skirt (skort?). But often and elsewhere, the evolution was effective, like with fresh cargo elements and nautical stripes. “That was a lot about my dad, who passed away when I was young,” said Lak. “He was living in Saudi Arabia, and I would see him wear cargo shorts in this particular green and Ralph Lauren stripe-y polos.” Things more in line with the preexisting Sies Marjan standard also shone: those bursts of fabulous color, Gerber’s aforementioned outfit included, as well as on his sister, Kaia, who wore a red crop top over a pale yellow plastic and silk skirt.Seeing Lak’s mother walk the roundabout was memorable. Her shirt, too, had the wavy bunching treatment at the middle, but here it worked, as it was offset by the white-on-blue stripes and a denim skirt with trailing bands. “I picked it for her, but . . . I had to make a change and move the pockets more to the front,” said Lak. “She thought it would be better that way. Mom is the biggest critic of all.” On the runway, Mom was smiling.
9 September 2018
Sander Lak revealed his fifth collection for Sies Marjan this afternoon (in the somewhat unlikely Penn Station area), and it was, on the whole, very, very good. This designer is renowned for his chromatic savvy, and he’s comfortable being known as a colorist: “I don’t really work off a distinct inspiration. And I’m sensitive to color. I can get nauseous if I see something that doesn’t feel right, and I began noticing that if I looked at color as a solid block, I couldn’t do it.” Enter: ombrés and dégradés in twisted whirls, overlay sheers, and fair furs. “Last season was light, a dreamy state,” Lak said. “This is still a dream but an intense one. Not a nightmare, not a happy dream, not a wet dream.” A lucid dream, maybe? “Yeah, kind of.”However, as Lak has demonstrated over Sies Marjans’s five seasons, his palette is generally quite soft; in that sense, the intensity he mentioned wasn’t so much in hardness as perhaps a bit more of a muted filter. A capelet-sleeve dress flowed from orangey rust to mercurial silver; a bunched knit sweater featured that tawny tone, enriched and comfy in an unconventional cut. A fur jacket had inverted panels of ombré, maroon to jade, pieced side by side. And away from the fade-aways, there were shaggy peacoats, shiny topcoats for the boys (Lak said men’s is selling well), flared pants, and even a holographic parka. (Those felt like outliers, but dreams can consist of all sorts of unpredictability.)What really stood out, and what really felt coded as Sies Marjan at this point while still moving the conversation forward, were actually the first and final looks. Up front, there was a pleated, shimmery mint-colored high-necked satin dress with a structured twist at the stomach; rounding it out, a simpler two-tone red-to-blue frock with the same spiral bunching. (Total sidenote, but this latter scheme felt accidentally timely, given the Korean unity at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang: The colors are integral parts of both North and South Korea’s flags.) Both demonstrated the easy elegance combined with exemplary color play that fans of this label have come to know and crave.
11 February 2018
It’s often tempting to read too much into a designer’s decision to show at one off-the-beaten-track venue or another. That said, Sander Lak’s choice to debut his latest collection in his own atelier did seem significant. Sies Marjan was coming home, returning to first principles. Lak hasn’t had much occasion to stray from those principles—this was only his fourth show—but the clothes on his zigzagging runway nevertheless communicated in straightforward fashion that Lak had recommitted himself to thinking, first and foremost, as a colorist. The strongest looks here had the quality of a forceful brushstroke of paint on a raw canvas.That brushstroke effect was articulated both by Lak’s emphasis on monochromatic looks, and his strategy of washing fabrics down so they crumpled, and/or sweeping them up, in, off to the side. There was a nice sense of spontaneity here, though the craft was very precise—to wit, on a cap-sleeved dress of salmon pink, the silk swooshed around just so. Speaking after the show, Lak said that he felt a monochromatic look conveyed “confidence,” a mood that certainly came through in looks like the suit of copper-toned laminated jacquard, or a crinkled pajama-style shirt and pants ensemble of iridescent teal, matched with the thick impasto of a dyed shearling coat. But other looks, such as Lak’s lovely silk dresses in pale pink or lilac, had a quieter attitude.To Lak’s credit, the tailored pieces and vaguely preppy knits he showed here didn’t interrupt the collection’s overarching painterly tone. And his capsule range of men’s looks—shiny trousers and button-down sets—fit seamlessly into the lineup, as well. You walked away from this show less thinking about individual items than feeling immersed in Lak’s palette. Which seemed to be the point.
10 September 2017
“Ease” is a byword at Sies Marjan, and with this, his third collection, creative director Sander Lak doubled down on the tone. The big takeaway idea in this afternoon’s show was clothing that had vaguely the look, and very much the je ne sais quoi attitude, of sheets or blankets spontaneously folded or draped about the body. In some cases Lak’s bedding-inspired approach led to diaphanous effects, as with his bi-level skirts and dresses with long pieces of fabric trailing off the back. In other instances, the effect was nattier: Some of the strongest items here were the wrap coats, which came off like a clever mash-up of a classic trench and a wool bed throw.Much of Lak’s attention appeared to be focused on finding ways, aside from tailoring, to tether his lengths of fabric to the body. The knotting technique he’s deployed since his first outing proved once again to be useful in that regard; another tactic was to gather his fabrics around long, punctuating zippers. The zippers gave the garments a bit of a sporty mien, one that didn’t seem an entirely natural fit with the vibe of the collection as a whole. Lak was plainly looking for opportunities to give this collection, so very emphatic in its fluidity, a bit of literal edge. Some of the pieces where he went directly at that aim worked, including the shimmery cropped leather flares; others, such as the sparkly fuchsia biker jacket, seemed out of sync with the whole. Lak did better delivering punch by way of his true love: color. It’s hard to think of a designer currently working who’s nervier with his palette than Lak, and when he leaned into his palette and let the colors do the talking, it was difficult not to be seduced by the clothes.
12 February 2017
You know that fluttery feeling you get after a really great first date? You arrive home and immediately the doubts set in: Will he call? What if he does call? What if you go out again, only there's no mezcal involved this time, and you realize that terrific first impression was a fluke? Aiiiiii…. This, more or less, was the fashion industry's collective mind-set in the days leading up to the second-everSies Marjanshow. Would designer Sander Lak sustain our excitement, or would Sies Marjan turn out to be a one-season stand?Well, based on Lak's sophomore outing, it seems safe to say we're in for a long-term commitment to his brand. This collection was even more confident than the one Lak debuted for Fall, doubling down on his affection for crazy amounts of color and sharpening the focus on his seemingly laissez-faire silhouettes. The clothes—draped, wrapped, bias-cut, slouched just so—had a real sense of swing, such that seeing them come down the catwalk in the New York Bar Association library had the effect of magnifying the palette's vibrancy. The models were like human brushstrokes, a slash of neon green here, an impasto of crushed pastel there. The recurring themes, in the pattern-making, of fabrics crisscrossing the bosom or folded back over the shoulders underscored the painterliness—the word that came to mind was "gesture," in the art historical sense.The crisscross tops will be sellers. So too the scarf-like dresses in parachute silks, and the ones shaped like tee-shirts, with voluminous bias-cut skirts. Ditto the pants with a kicky little flare at the hem and the wide-legged cargos and the separated ones in hammered and/or iridescent materials. Lak makes a point of showing on the runway the clothes he actually plans to sell, which means that this collection's fans will be able to get their hands on all the items they're coveting, with one exception: As Lak noted after the show, he's not just up-and-running on shoe production, a fact that will come as a sad surprise to the front-rowers casting envious eyes on his platform slides. But that's the thing about a great date: It always leaves you wanting more.
11 September 2016