Running a fashion studio means existing on another time zone, somewhere adjacent to the rest of the world. Worn out by the headlines, the London-based designer Natalia Alaverdian—Ukranian and Armenian by heritage, Muscovite by birth—called it her sanctuary, a place to delve into the alt world of cinema. This season, she said she was taken with filmmaker Robert Rodriguez who, three decades ago, at age 23, shot El Mariachi on a $7,000 budget and then wrote a book about it called Rebel Without a Crew. The economy of means reeled her in.
“I had to detach from everything to come back into focus,” the designer said during a showroom presentation on the Left Bank. “Clothes are my means of escape. You don’t have to watch the world falling apart if you work 15 hours a day.”
For fall, she found her groove in the improbable convergence of Dutch traditional costume and origami, which manifested variously in cut-out skirts that riffed on A.W.A.K.E’s bestselling circle one—rotor-blade dresses in Prince of Wales check or in black with white topstitching, and a shoe that looked like the lovechild of a certain ubiquitous shearling-lined flat boot and a clog, complete with upturned toe.
The collection focused on classics with a twist: a “jacket dress” with lapels at both neckline and hem, a polo shirt with a placket yanked sideways, a hybrid bomber/puffer, and an Argyle sweater with one ballooned and one fitted sleeve. A trench capelet cut asymmetrically to stand away from the body was paired with very wide dark-wash denim flares. An evening iteration of that coat came in heavy, bonded white crepe with a snap closure, as well as in leather and a quilted field version with a big, swingy A-line cut and oversized pockets.
Come fall, extra sleeves will be cropping up all over, and here Alaverdian weighed in with a sleeved pant, styled with a traditional pom-pom bonnet or that white evening trench with open-toe court shoes crowned by quivering pom-poms. Knits sourced from Peru included a belted red poncho sweater made from scarves, a turtleneck with one long sleeve and one cape shoulder, and a graphically textured green sweater paired with chocolate cords cut wide and long enough to pool on the floor. A deep lineup checked most of the season’s key trends. That, plus a rich 1970s-leaning palette—aubergine, orange, chocolate, red—will likely keep A.W.A.K.E’s base engaged.
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