totempyrean \/\/ jean-pierre braganza
Last week wunderkind and Lagerfeld protogé Jean-Pierre Braganza unveiled his A/W 09 collection, entitled ” Totempyrean” at Milan’s Fashion Week. Braganza, a Brit-born Canadian, used to show in London, but switched over to Milan recently. The collection, Braganza told Coutorture, was inspired by Native American imagery and futuristic, sculptural tailoring. The hard-edges of the collection were softened by prints that came from digitally manipulated x-rays.
For me, Braganza combines the best of Balenciaga (silhouettes), the sleek lines of McQueen, the rockstar attitude of Rick Owens, and mixes it all together with a whisk of origami-perfect pleating. Not that Braganza isn’t entirely original, he is. I wouldn’t call his look fresh or anything else that sounds like lemonade, but there is something new in his aesthetic. While I can find elements of many lines in his work, it points only towards the future.
Braganza’s minimal use of color is spectacular. I love the combinations of black and purple, and the space age blues. Arctic fox rubs up against merino in a symphony of textures. You can almost hear the heart beating behind this collection, it’s all raging guitar solos and drum machine whirs and hisses. In fact, it sounds a little like NIN, for whom Braganza has done custom work.
And then there’s this completely bizarre and beautiful film, “Chromacolyte”, that Malcom Pate created for Braganza’s A/W 08 show. As if I could like him more. Just take my heart, fold it into a paper crane and dip it in leather, because I’m in love.
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Photo Credits: Coutorture
