Spring is rife with contemplation of interior spaces, the intimacy of the home, the act of dressing for oneself, and the luxury of discretion, even if in certain corners the results are anything but quiet.
Count Paula Canovas del Vas in that category. Her clothes are made for fun and high impact, but this once-in-a-lifetime Paris season presented her—like every other emerging talent in town—with a fundamental question: how to cut through all the noise?
“It was tricky,” the designer allowed before her presentation. “We decided that we had to do something that felt mobile, that we could shoot in different spots around the city. So that part’s very public. But then we thought, ‘What can we do that’s the opposite of public? How can we create a juxtaposition with an intimate space?’”
Leave it to Canovas to come up with an unexpected solution. The designer and her team wound up repurposing a dropside truck into a white-tiled bathroom and parked it directly in front of the Café de la Mairie, one of the most popular watering holes in the Upper Marais. There, crowds clogged the sidewalk and a forest of smartphones sprang up as models wearing the spring collection performed usually private rituals—brushing teeth, sitting on the (closed) toilet, and otherwise prepping to face the outside world.
A black top with ruffled shoulders and matching trousers was one of a few uncharacteristically monochrome offerings, and the lineup was the stronger for it. Also new were denim treatments—washed, lasered and embroidered—dotted amid jaunty clashes of color, materials, distorted florals and deconstructed knits. The pompom one-offs, made of hand-cut strips of jersey layered into puffball statement pieces, took a solid two months to make, the designer said.
Canovas has a fanbase in footwear, and here she reimagined the Converse Chuck 70 and Chuck Taylor All Star XXHi with 3D floral embellishments and herringbone motifs. The pronged Diablo line welcomed two new styles, as well: a flat sandal and a lace-up version of the sneaker.
“I think we live in such a clash currently,” the designer said. “These are polarized clothes for a polarized world.” Fair enough. But fortunately amid all the cacophony were more straightforwardly wearable pieces—the striped skirts come to mind—that even the clash-averse might embrace.
