‘Tactile, reduced and raw’: exploring the sensual textures of the A/W 2024 collections
Model Kelly Mittendorf tries on the texture-rich ensembles of the A/W 2024 womenswear collections, heralding a season of texture, tactility and touch
A season of tactility, texture and touch – so runs the byline for the September 2024 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, our deep-dive into the A/W 2024 fashion collections. On the cover, seminal American model Kelly Mittendorf – who began her career over a decade ago when she booked a Prada campaign aged just 16 – appears in a shaggy shearling coat from McQueen, part of designer Seán McGirr’s debut collection as creative director of the British house.
Photographed by Nicole Maria Winkler and styled by Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes, it featured as part of a series of images exploring the texture-rich ensembles of the A/W 2024 womenswear collections, from glossy leather to enveloping shearling and faux fur. These are clothes that are as pleasurable to wear as they are to look at – a mood of sensory pleasure that runs through the season’s collections.
‘Tactile, reduced and raw’: the sensory pleasures of A/W 2024
‘The theme of the story was skin on skin,’ says Winkler. ‘We wanted to create something very tactile, reduced and raw with leathers and skin-like materials. I’ve been working around themes of materiality and the female body for a while, so this felt like a natural extension of some of my personal work.’
‘It was special to shoot the day before I turned 30,’ adds Mittendorf. ‘Turning 30 means I’ve officially spent more than half of my life on set, and it feels like a full circle moment to know who I am while working on a project that felt so sensual and present and collaborative. Twist my arm to hop on a plane to London and lounge about in luxurious clothes with wonderful people.’
Model: Kelly Mittendorf at Elite London. Casting: Ikki Casting at WSM. Set design: Kim Harding. Hair: Yumi Nakada-Dingle using Bumble and Bumble. Make-up: Sunao Takahashi from Saint Luke using Byredo. Manicure: Jessica Ciesco at Snow Creatives using Nailberry. Photography assistant: Tom Porter. Set design assistant: Lucy Ann Fraser. Fashion assistant: Lucy Proctor Production assistant: Ady Huq. Digi tech: Anna-Sophia John.
This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.
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Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.
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