First came Storm Éowyn. And then Storm Colm rolled into town. Backstage beforehand, Dillane said: “Fashion’s demand is wildly inspiring because there’s a gun to your head. Every six months, you have to come up with something, so you force yourself.” Tonight that self-imposed pressure whipped up a tornado.
This was courtesy of fellow New Yorkers, the artist Daniel Wurtzel and his wife Lynn Newman. KidSuper blew into their lives when Dillane got in touch two months ago in order to bring Wurtzel’s painstakingly calculated practice to this Paris runway. It began as the show opened, and vents hidden in the stage released lazy fingers of vapor up above it. A circle of outlets then gathered and guided this vapor to within the range of an airscrew turning at high speed: this whipped the vapor into a furious vortex, et voila, KidSuper had his weather event.
It was a fairly blustery fashion event, too. The opening section was vaguely apocalyptic, featuring lots of layering and dramatic swathing. There was a wild dissonance in fabrication, ranging from painted upcycled army surplus kit bags to the looks 7 and 8, which Dillane said were the first KidSuper Made In Italy products in his brand’s history. “As I grow, so does the manufacturing capability,” he said. “But I don’t want to be super-luxurious, or to quadruple my prices: I’m not that guy.”
The letter covered garments we first saw at Dillan’s Louis Vuitton cameo collection returned via a mid-length dress. Another readymade dress, this one echoing his excellent SS23 show, was created from discarded canvasses. His collage face puffers and denim barn jackets got their headshots, along with a face backpack. Embroidered doodle outerwear, sprayed portrait shirting, and topstitched illustrated suiting made a comeback. There was a moody poem trench coat in black leather. The penultimate quilted white suit was impressionistic and technically impressive.
There was also an extensive collaboration with Bape, including a Dillane caricature Baby Milo T-shirt, shark hoodies, house camo jackets, and a suit pinstriped with vine leaves. Dillane recalled that one of his very earliest fashion scores came when he was still at school and managed to sell some T-shirts he’d printed to people in the queue outside the Nigo-founded (and long-ago sold) brand’s New York store.
“I try to do the impossible every time,” said Dillane as he took his bow. KidSuper’s kinetically entrepreneurial energy remains a breath of fresh air at Paris Fashion Week.
