"In the 40-ish looks shown during their SS25 show, the Fannings procured a story about the phases and characters of transience— or more so what it looks like to exist in transitional spaces. "
There are lots of ways we exist: as employees, passengers, carriers, defectors. Sometimes, it’s hard to navigate. Where do you put all your stuff? What clothes do you wear when your plane leaves from Alaska and lands in Arizona? How do you present yourself to a stranger you’ll never see again? These are the kinds of questions twin creative directors Laura and Deanna Fanning sought to answer with their SS25 Kiko Kostadinov womenswear collection.
“We dreamed of that process of dressing for a space to go nowhere – that transient space, that non-place,” Deanna Fanning said backstage under the stained glass of the Cathédrale Américaine de Paris on the final day of the city’s fashion week. It's only been six years since the London-based brand launched its womenswear division under the Fanning sisters, but this collection was anything but juvenile.
Watching the show, I couldn’t help but think of the TWA hotel. It’s a working terminal turned restaurant and lodge that is fully fitted in red-and-white midcentury modern fashion: all vast, winged ceilings and a working split-flap board displaying ads for the obsolete Tab soda. There are rotary phones on the walls with dial tones that don’t make calls, one of the world’s biggest hotel gyms, and a 1958 Connie airplane renovated into a bar. The only pitfall of the Fanning twin’s show was that it didn’t take place here.
Although, the Cathédrale Américaine was undeniably a beautiful substitute. The 1886 Gothic Revival Cathedral stood in stunning contrast to the more funky, modern looks shown. The show began with tailored pantsuits and aviatorial accessories like pins, hats, and neck scarves fitted with wire so as to look permanently windswept. Bias-cut silk dresses followed copious amounts of geometric-patterned knits which leaned heavily into the mod MO. Bespoke postage stamps were designed for the collection and appeared on both crinkle dresses and a denim jacket/pant co-ord – part of Kostidanov’s collaboration with Levi’s. By the end of the show, the bold color blocking faded to gray and it all got a little utilitarian. The show closed with a selection of coats in varying styles and silhouettes, from trenches to robes to shoulder-padded windbreakers.
The shoes rotated through two kinds of boots and one pair of loafers, but the stand out was certainly the Courreges-style flat-sole gogo boots — a spandex sock and leather flat combo that evoked something of the Jetsons: an antiquated cartoon of an imagined future.
The show was fresh yet derivative of so many things: a girl scout uniform broken down for parts, ‘60s Japanese and American womenswear, practical gorp core, Evan Picone’s Pan Am uniforms.
A former Pan Am flight attendant had actually once described the airline’s beauty standards as something akin to a cover shoot: “I remember the strip lashes curling up and away from my eyes when I opened the oven door in the galley,” she said, adding that a supervisor once wrote in her probation report, “'wears wig attractively.'” And details reminiscent of this experience cropped up all over in the show’s styling. Each model wore faux-colored lashes that flapped far off from the normal placement of lash strips and a chunk of the models wore lampoonish beehive wigs two-thirds the size of their heads.
In the 40-ish looks shown during their SS25 show, the Fannings procured a story about the phases and characters of transience— or more so what it looks like to exist in transitional spaces. Garments felt adaptable, like they could be mixed and matched at any time, any place. The storyline forged synergy between the twin’s womenswear sect and Kiko’s foundational menswear collections which are often guided by a central narrative or point in history. With each season, Kostadinov has found a way to inject itself further into the mass conversation. From the cult obsession over the Trivia purse to the way the brand comes up in the same sentences as Miu Miu, it’s truly exciting to observe their journey. 🌀7.9
Sophia Scorziello is a freelance writer from Connecticut who misses living in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter for unsolicited takes and Spotify links.