Mood board: The show was entitled ‘Performa’ in homage to the performance art biennial created by Roselee Goldberg in 2004. Ever since, this has explored the role of live performance within contemporary art discourse and encouraged new directions. ’The romance of Joseph Beuys’ Aktions at Documenta in the Seventies always thrilled me and, in my head, Performa is the evolution of that,’ Owens said in the show notes. At the start, guttural smoke machines were fired up, spewing a cloud of greyish cashmere smoke along the floor, skimming the shoes of the guests.
Best in show: The show opened with a series of cashmere all-in-ones that sinuously wrapped around the body. The look channelled a hard comfort. Draped tees; vinyl macs worn over puffas. Peaked shoulders mimicked Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man from the architect’s anthropometric scale of proportions devised in the late 1940s. Some knits were traced in graphic line and worn under double-faced cashmere robes. With his clothes, Owens has always embodied a performative kind of luxury. For A/W 20, the jackets and tabards were sculptural, unforgiving. Shoulders colossal. The collection was muted in grey yet lifted by painted snake, bright blue fish skin, leopard-printed satins and bleached seawolf patchwork.
Sound bite: Owens had been thinking about the designer as performer. ‘I had always regarded personal behaviour, social and moral, as something to quietly but diligently work on improving. But at 58, I find myself, for better or worse, performing,’ he considered. ‘The difference between behaviour and performance implies falseness and rehearsal in the latter, but maybe concentration on behaviour can be a bit passively dry? And performance a joyous contribution? Our Instagram generation makes refining behaviour vs indulging in performance a weird new balancing act…’
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Inside Alessandro Michele’s showstopping debut haute couture show for ValentinoThis afternoon in Paris (29 Janaury 2025), the Italian designer hit new heights with an eclectic, era-traversing couture collection for Valentino
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Inside Bell Labs, the modernist vision behind Severance's minimalist settingWe explore the history of Bell Labs - now known as Bell Works - the modernist Eero Saarinen-designed facility in New Jersey, which inspired the dystopian minimalist setting of 'Severance'
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Toronto’s DesignTO 2025 highlights – design and art to see across the cityAt DesignTO, the largest festival of its kind in Canada, determined artists and designers gather in Toronto in full embrace of chilly weather. Our on-the-ground correspondent reports on its standout moments
