Mention the name Sonia Rykiel and you think of the French designer’s geometric red bob, striped knitwear (bras optional) but mostly, eminently wearable clothes.
Rykiel the designer died almost two years ago, but for the past four years, her fashion house has been overseen by artistic director Julie de Libran. Now, as the brand celebrates its 50th anniversary, a collection showcasing 50 years of Rykiel’s “savoir-faire” launched this weekend in Paris at the start of couture fashion week. The show featured an inventory of Rykiel’s iconic pieces – skinny knit dresses designed to look like second skin and liberate movement, alongside thick, ripped jumpers, feathered gowns in bright splashes of colour and modern twists on the tuxedo – dresses, jackets and coats. Models wore Rykiel wigs and parodic takes on the famous ‘skinny boy knit’, smiling as they walked round the mosaic’d cloisters of l’ecole des Beaux Arts. It was, the notes said, a mix of transgressive luxury and nonchalant fantasy. In short: “madly Rykiel”.
“Yes, I’m nervous, of course,” admitted De Libran, speaking from her studio a few days before the show. She described the collection as a celebration of women. “This is about women’s clothes, designed for women and by women,” she said. “People now forget the skill that goes into fashion. It is so throwaway.”
The show is not couture because Sonia Rykiel does not do couture. As Marylou Luther, the notable French fashion writer (and friend of Rykiel) said in 1967, “couture is not enough. You need a Rykiel.” Rather the show is “L’Atelier Sonia Rykiel” and aims to celebrate its “past and present” in typical wearable style. Still, in many ways it will be couture in spirit – at least with a Left Bank twist. If Yves Saint Laurent, a 1970s French contemporary, co-opted the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) for his ready-to-wear collections, then Rykiel, the clothes and the woman, was the living embodiment of that aesthetic.
It was struggling to find decent maternity wear that sparked Rykiel’s career, although she became well known for cultivating “Nonfashion”, as her spring/summer 1977 collection called it. Her skinny “poor boy” jumpers were politicised for their unisex shape, and worn by Audrey Hepburn.
Rykiel opened her first boutique in 1968 on Paris’s Left Bank, a stone’s throw from that year’s student-led protests. At the time, the shop – small, with three sweaters and some books in the window – was linked to events only by proximity; when the riots escalated, she closed for a while. The two events would become intertwined, the cultural and sexual revolution coming to define Rykiel’s brand.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
