SS–17
For spring/summer there is a new formal ease and buoyancy to Raimund Berthold’s exploration of volume, lightness and scale.
Research began with an archival French army cavalry coat, which was wrapped and placed on the body, generating sharp silhouettes from its colossal proportions. From this, the collection developed to look at how volume can be controlled, folded and tucked away. The drape across asymmetric-front jackets in engineered lightweight leather is graphic and bold. The longer line of jersey separates controls the sway of wide-legged trousers.
Central to the mood board are images of artworks whose graphic line has been broken, split or interrupted. Blocks of contrast fabric are used to break up garments. Technical performance and outerwear fabrics are paired with natural woven cotton and suiting. There is a structural elegance to the season’s knitwear; the fine gauge oversized square men's T with intarsia contrast stripe and long-line knitted jacket are clean and crisp.
Artist Anish Kapoor’s 2010 Ascension (Red) installation at The Guggenheim Museum New York inspired the collection’s disciplined breeziness. The work’s solid, dense colour, photographed dissolving and permeating the air through Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling rotunda informed BERTHOLD’s palette of red, ivory, steel and black. As in Kapoor’s work, the red is sober and thoughtful rather than aggressive; black is natural and uncomplicated. This is a dimension of energy and eloquence.