This is our unfiltered review of Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood Spring 2021.
Each season, Vivienne Westwood’s show in Paris is always one of the most decadent. It usually encompasses performances of some sort, a statement of social responsibility, or as is the case of last season, Bella Hadid walking down the runway with a large knife (the previous season she wore an outlandish wedding dress).
But for Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood’s Spring 2021 collection, it was a much more toned down approach, with no physical show and just a lookbook and video instead.
If you follow Andreas Kronthaler (Vivienne Westwood’s longtime husband and now design partner) on Instagram, you may have noticed a compelling resemblance between his feed and the presentation of the Spring 2021 collection. The vast majority of what Kronthaler posts on his instagram is sweet photos of Westwood dressed up in her eclectic aesthetic. Even if you aren’t the biggest fan of Kronthaler himself, any Westwood fan would have to admire his feed.
For Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood Spring 2021, it was almost as if the same concept (of Westwood’s true and unusual way of dressing on an everyday basis) was reborn into a collection. Even the wild makeup was there.
For the occasion, Kronthaler dressed up himself, Westwood, and the iconic muse of the brand, Sara Stockbridge, and got to shooting photos on his iPhone. All the classic elements of the Westwood house codes were there: a mix of British punk, refined elegance and the rather literal interpretations of tartan, fishnet stockings, oversized jewelry and a mix of refined dresses that showed the skill of both designers’ exacting tailoring.
Despite the eccentricity that reigned throughout the collection, there were also quite a few more elements that felt drastically more casual than the typical Vivienne Westwood collection. For one, there was less structure and more emphasis on wearability with even Kronthaler himself wearing a pair of leggings. There were knitted separates, and plenty of baggy button-down shirts. In today’s climate, it makes total sense, but we also would have loved to see more emphasis on the Westwood classics that we know the brand by best. There’s a reason why her classic three-string pearl chokers and corsets have been trending today even under lockdown; just take a scroll through TikTok or Instagram, it’s hard to miss Westwood’s classic touch on some of the coolest girls (celebs, or not).
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