Ohne Titel (Q8811)
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Ohne Titel is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Ohne Titel |
Ohne Titel is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2008
shoe designer
Moths have gotten kind of a bad rap. Like their brighter, flashier, more, shall we say, “street style–friendly” relative the butterfly, the oft-swatted flying insects belong to the order lepidoptera, and the pattern of their wings is the result of light diffracted through a complex microscopic structure of ribs and holes, which, if you think about it, makes them a perfect source of inspiration for Flora Gill and Alexa Adams ofOhne Titel. The designer team has long been beloved for their technical mastery when it comes to knits. (Never mind the fact that moths, if given time and opportunity, would quite happily eat their handiwork.)“We were looking at Joseph Scheer’s photography of the underside of moths’ wings,” said Adams, explaining that the color gradations they found in Scheer’s work took Ohne Titel’s latest collection, shown Tuesday, to a “gothy, Victorian place,” right in step with the industry’s current dark romance. That translated into longer knit skirts coming complete with fluted hems and what Gill called a “subversive ruffle,” knit or neoprene knee-high sock boots, and multicolored (and multi-pelted) layered fur gilets and chubbies. Metallic ribbed-knit dresses in shades of emerald and wine had a day-to-night ease and a need-it-now quality, which wasn’t quite the case with sheer skirts beaded and dogged with floor-sweeping feather trim.Clever fabrication was everywhere. A leather car coat appeared to be printed but, upon closer inspection, was actually woven using a method inspired by the caning on antique chairs. A 3-D-printed cage dress was linked together like chain mail and seamed with knit sections to provide flexibility and stretch—as well as a sense of protection. “Armor,” said Gill. Bric-a-brac black bodysuits were worn under most everything, and metal beads showed up amid the sleeves of knit jackets. This was no fun-and-flirty fit-and-flare fare. The effect was darkly glamorous: a collection decidedly made for those attracted to bright lights and late nights.
16 February 2016
Climate changeis sort of hard to avoid these days, between the recent landmark agreement in Paris, theRepublican nominees’ refusal to acknowledge it, and the fact that the weather in New York City has been in the balmy high-50s for most of December. One could hardly blameOhne Titel’s Alexa Adams and Flora Gill for skewing their Pre-Fall collection toward a decidedly warmer season than that which its name might suggest. The clothes were light and floaty, the palette spring-y—seafoam, coral, white, navy, and black—and skin was in, with very open-weave body-con dresses and light little seamless knit dresses and sheer silk blouses cut to reveal swathes of shoulder or nips of neck.Cotton milkmaid dresses with smocking in red, black, and blue nailed the off-the-shoulder trend in a cinch without being too Little Bo Peep about it and are just the type of thing that should get shoppers in the mood to switch up their closets to something fetching and floaty, come May. The style came in creamy silk, with a longer skirt, too, which would make any low-key summer bride exuberantly happy (though in navy it could certainly segue into fall—especially if temperatures continue to err on the side of mild). The pair found inspiration in shells, explained Adams, and their famously intricate seamless knits followed a Fibonacci-esque swirl down the front of tank tops, swingy skirts, and a thin cropped cardigan with a fluted waist, what Adams called “a ’90s callback.” It wasn’t all hits: a lipstick-color perforated leather jacket with cropped sleeves didn’t feel quite right, and a thickly leather-banded miniskirt that had an origami fold in the front felt a little stiff hanging amongst so many elegantly fluid silhouettes. The best dress of all might have been the most shapeless on the hanger: a sheer knit frock with a series of buttons on the front, slipperily silky and lightweight and showing just enough of an elegant hand to be—what else?—seasonless.
18 December 2015
Really, there are any number of ways to do summer style. For some, there’s the desire for the easy, the breezy, and the often sheer; for others, there’s a chain-fringed bandeau and trouser boasting aJustin Bieber–esque quasi-harem drape. For either (for both!), there isOhne Titel’s Spring 2016 collection. As usual, there were the technically advanced knits the house is known for, seen in body-conscious one-shouldered tops and skirts, bodysuits, bikinis, and a red and white fit-and-flare frock that sunny Sunday dreams are made of. Nearly all the knits had geometrical patterns painstakingly woven in.New for Ohne Titel were the entirely fetching gauzy pleated caftan dresses, lightweight pieces in bright, summery shades, and a series of fringed bra tops, skirts, and a dress crafted from the chains of ball bearings. Off-the-shoulder viscose rompers and separates came in shades of crimson and magenta that felt fresh and easy, and easily imagined on any number of vacationing It girls, from Montauk to Ibiza. But it was a geometrically printed silk shirtdress, long, lean, and slashed at the shoulders, in a deep teal and navy combination, that felt like the biggest advance made in the pursuit of true summer style.
10 September 2015
Flora Gill and Alexa Adams were on a mission this season. As they explained at an appointment today, they wanted their new collection to be their "most feminine ever." Mission very much accomplished: The femme was omnipresent here, witnessed particularly in the palette's shades of blush and pink and the collection's inclusion of a vintage-y silk chiffon adapted from Swiss dot. And the Ohne Titel duo struck an unusually vixenish tone with their standout looks, an eyelet knit pencil dress with sturdy athletic mesh cleverly integrated into the crochet, and a strapless knit dress with a flared skirt and exaggerated knit-in perforation. Both those dresses have been racking up the sales—no surprise.Elsewhere, Gill and Adams returned to their signature sporty, graphic knits, but they gave those looks a discernible update in terms of the silhouettes. A case in point was a dotted cobalt blue fit-and-flare dress; similar fit-and-flare frocks have been an Ohne Titel trademark, but here Gill and Adams shifted the proportion by lifting the waist and lengthening the skirt, with the result of crafting a more grown-up shape. This collection also underscored the designers' continuing evolution of their tailoring: There was crisp striped shirting, extrapolated with particular appeal into a kicky romper, and a terrific soft-tailored sleeveless trench with a windowpane back. The innovative knits were the standouts—they always are, chez Ohne Titel—but there were close contenders from the cut-and-sew categories. It made you eager to see what Gill and Adams have in store in coming seasons.
12 June 2015
There was something, dare we say, slightly retro this season about Alexa Adams and Flora Gill's usually ultramodern knits. It was subtle, for sure, but in a collection that usually sticks to its technology- and technique-pushing ways with knits, this spelled big news. There was a touch of flare to the opening look's red pants, worn with a pink ribbed wrap, mock turtleneck, belted sash, and net detail. It didn't exactly constitute a bell-bottom, but the subsequent belted black and brown suede trench, jazzy purple Lurex tanks, and handful of wrapped sweaters cinched into skirts (creating the illusion of a wrap dress) gave off a '70s vibe. Faint, but present.Adams and Gill also loosened up the strict fit-and-flare knit formula they normally adhere to. This was best seen in two-tone dresses with striped pleats that created a layered optical effect as the models moved. Their colors seemed to get away from them at times, swinging from turquoise, blues, and pinks to muted gray and brown, but all in all this was a big push forward.
12 February 2015
The world is completely insane. Consider this:Before They Pass Away,the book that inspired Ohne Titel's Pre-Fall collection, documents 31 indigenous tribes from around the world, people who still live in a way most of us only experience via visits to a history museum or readings in college anthropology classes. Meanwhile,on the same planet,Ohne Titel designer Flora Gill's husband is making space suits for NASA. (The things you learn at showroom appointments…) By analogy, you might say that this collection fused the tribal and the technical. The tribal was to be found in the copious stripes and graphic knit-in patterns—a non-literal nod to the body painting done by tribes in Ethiopia. The technical, on the other hand, was of course to be discovered in Gill and partner Alexa Adams' remarkable knits, which they continue to advance. The most intriguing knit development here was a sideways rib, used on skirts, which read as a kind of soft pleat. (There were also shorter, traditionally pleated skirts, which featured a cool foil stripe that gave the pieces a bit of unexpected shine.) What felt newest in this lineup, however, were the long, lean silhouettes: Ohne Titel is known for its abbreviated, fit-and-flare shapes, but this season's fitted knit pencil skirts and dresses deserve to be added to the brand's list of staples. A pair of vertically striped, high-waisted trousers were even more attenuated—the woman who wears them will feel, and look, a mile tall. Perhaps the single best item in the collection overall, though, was the short knit tank, zipped wet suit-style, which Adams and Gill used as a layering piece throughout—a versatile garment, especially handy for adding a punch of color to an outfit. The tribe of Ohne Titel fans will snap it up.
8 January 2015
"Our girl is the cool surfer girl," said Alexa Adams and Flora Gill a day before their show. That beach lover was filtered through the pair's two favorite motifs: the fit-and-flare silhouette and an art beat. The latter came via Bianca Pratorius' draped, hand-cut fettucine-like swaths of felt. How those disparate starting points melded was in a bright, textured, ultra-body-con collection.Pratorius was referenced in the colorful fringe draped across skintight minidresses and swim looks in neoprene and latex. Snug is one word for them—and also unforgiving. But it was when Adams and Gill turned their attentions to sweatshirts, flared minis, pencil skirts, and cropped pants that things got interesting. Curvy pink and black striations on a silk shirt and matching tapered pants created a neat visual line. Meanwhile, when they did sweatshirts—which are generally starting to get rather old on all the runways—in colorful neoprene mesh, they looked more techy than sporty. In other words, fresh.The designers really pushed themselves on the tech front, which is shaping up to be a big message this season. Nearly every look used some kind of scuba-worthy material or engineered wizardry (Gill creates their prints on Excel), such as a yarn sandwiched between two knit layers to create a textured sweater, or the mesh frills that ran up the back of to-the-knee gladiators. Most successful of all the techy-meets-surf craftiness was a pair of sophisticated cropped and tapered pants, in white and black, cut from neoprene. That would be a great idea for the designers to dive into for next season.
8 September 2014
Swimwear fun fact: Apparently the first racing suits were made of knit wool. That's according to Flora Gill, who dropped that piece of trivia apropos of the new Ohne Titel collection, which featured knit bikinis. Not that Gill and partner Alexa Adams are out to convince the women of the world to forsake their Speedos—at an appointment today, the duo admitted that they see the scuba-style knit tops mixed with other clothes in the collection, with the matching bottoms (sold separately) serving as more of a niche item. And that, in a nutshell, was this collection's one concession to fancy. These clothes were very, very commercial. And that's not a knock—it's much to Adams' and Gill's credit that they can apply their remarkable technical ingenuity to the making of pieces like this season's seamless, reversible knit jacquard dresses, which came with kicky flares and op art stripes inspired by the work of sixties artist Sven Lukin. Women will like those dresses, and they'll also like the innovative knit pleated ones with the crisscross bodices, and the non-knit versions done in leather foil-printed chiffon. There will also be a customer for the poncho in an abstracted zebra stripe, among many other pieces here. Long story short, Ohne Titel wasn't pushing the woman who buys its clothes to challenge herself this season. But Gill and Adams were clearly pushing themselves to find new ways to interest her, and make accessible shapes feel fresh.
2 June 2014
If in the past we've wished for Alexa Adams and Flora Gill to push Ohne Titel beyond its optical knits and fit-and-flare silhouettes, today's show indicated they are ready to do just that, without sacrificing any of their label's signature urbane modernity. The graphic jacquards and fit-and-flare silhouettes were still there, but the backbone of this collection was surface texture, whether in the tufted sleeves of a popcorn-knit sweater or the gleaming silver shaft of a stovepipe boot.Adams and Gill are often inspired by contemporary art, and today it was Kasper Sonne's carpet-woven color fields that set the backdrop—literally and figuratively—for Fall 2014. In the wrong hands, this concept could have produced a shaggy seventies patchwork, but not here. Instead, the designers combined neoprene, deerskin, variegated knits, and glossy black shearling in zip-up moto jackets, vests, and coats likely to become have-to-haves for women in colder climates. And what to wear underneath? Try a neoprene-backed shell, fronted entirely with what appeared to be glazed feathers. "We started out calling that fabric waxy pony, but then it began to look more like feathers," said Adams backstage after the show, adding that she and Gill worked with a Japanese mill to develop the material, which is entirely synthetic. Although the designers seemed rightfully thrilled with the results, they were restrained in their use of the fabric, which appeared in smallish doses in both oxblood and black, and was echoed in a tonal feather effect in the models' hair. Another textile innovation was black fuzzy wool roving that had been needle-punched into fabrics. The roving gave a matted, felted look to the top of a crisp, white pleated skirt, to great effect.Many short dresses and skirts (and even skinny trousers) were paired with thigh-high leather boots. Extending to the very tops of models' legs, their silhouette seemed less like the second-skin thigh-highs that have appeared in recent seasons and more similar to stovepipe pants or, in the case of a metallic silver pair, space-age waders. There were chunky black heels with silver backs, too, which Adams extolled backstage as "super-wearable." Judging by the way the models marched, they probably were. The metallic element was repeated in foiled rib knits, and although the surface of those pieces may have appeared futuristic and tough to the observer, they sat close to the body and were soft to the touch—the ultimate in urban armor.
9 February 2014
This was a very good Ohne Titel collection. It may also have been a collection that was a littletooOhne Titel. Designers Alexa Adams and Flora Gill bring a ton of visual and technical intelligence to the task of refreshing their brand signatures each season; this time out, though, they did seem to be repeating themselves. What saved this lineup was the fact that its main motif was so undeniably compelling: Adams and Gill were playing with perspective, and the ways objects grow smaller and parallel lines seem to arc toward each other when viewed from a distance. They translated that theme into myriad technical knit pieces, the Ohne Titel specialty, deploying a well-judged palette of neutrals and blues. The pieces satisfied, but they felt familiar. And as the show progressed, you got the sense that Gill and Adams were ready to push things in a new direction, too: The silk halter dresses weren't terribly exciting, but they did introduce a new silhouette, while the embroidered organza pieces came off as genuinely fresh. Keep pushing, ladies.
8 September 2013