“Let me weep over my cruel fate, and let me sigh for liberty.” These words from composer Handel’s famous aria, Lascia ch’io pianga, have accompanied Glenn Martens during the whole creation of Y/Project’s Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection. While these lyrics are filled with pain, they also carry serenity and solemnity.
The Creative Director of the French brand imagines embroidered outfits, a novelty for the house: sweatshirts or jersey dresses enhanced with embellishments of the same material, or tweed coats embroidered with denim. A majesty that is present in large caftans, also in denim, or adaptable bombers and coats made with several layers.
The theatrical touch is also imbued with irony, a reference to the prelude of Antichrist by Lars von Trier that accompanies the music of Handel. Screenshots of pornographic films, carefully cropped, are printed on dresses, skirts and tops in silk or jersey. This game continues with the multi-collared shirts or iron-inserted outfits that have become Y/Project essentials, and even a white chiffon dress whose neckline can be twisted, revealing whatever you desire.
The same free and spectacular spirit is found in a new model of boots, covered with leather or denim panels, with an adaptable shape thanks to snap buttons. The “Paris Best” print, a reference to the Y/Project denim jacqueron since 2013, imagining a coat of arms for the house, with an Eiffel Tower as a visual background, is embroidered on denim bags. The same material is imitated on another bag design, made of leather and inserted with wires.
Jewelry reproduces the hand signs. A gesture of complicity, unity and individuality. Like the soundtrack of the show, signed Senjan Jansen : a remix of 58 different interpretations of Lascia ch’io pianga.
