In a season that’s already seen its fair share of cut-and-paste crafts, it was up to Jil Sander to show them how it’s done. After all, if anyone in fashion has the adroitness for cutting, folding, and slicing, it’s the German overlord of clean, cool precision. It was in the asymmetrical folded crop tops and slashed skirts of her Spring/Summer 2014 collection that Sander most excelled, the sharp signature of her trademark cutting making itself instantly known, while a white glittery translucent turtleneck number with panes of grey and beige styled with an almost metallic silver blue satin trouser cemented Sander’s definitive take on the season.
With all the cutting edges, it was remarkable how light and feminine the designer managed to make it all appear. A key contributor to this fact was a series of print looks, described so elegantly in the show notes as “a painterly moment”, which drew on the work of Alighiero Boetti in their harmonious turmoil of colourful objects and creatures. They were echoed in a graceful dress covered in black and white feather embroidery, which summed up the collection’s quiet orderly disorder, and which was – naturally – worn with a pool sandal. And can we just talk about how brave it is to send Capri trousers down a twenty-first century catwalk? This woman knows no fear.
