What is intentional design? It may sound fantastic, but at Fforme, designer Paul Helbers did it magnificently with a well-thought-out and edited collection that also sparked joy in a season that has so far had very little of it.
The former Louis Vuitton and The Row menswear designer drew a glittering Gucci pre-party crowd at his Saturday night show, from influencer Leandra Medine to Jill Biden's stylist Bailey Moon, who set up shop to hear Anastasia Cooper sing and strum her guitar while Models in ballet flats and colorful knit hats wandered around the room, exuding the kind of effortless sophistication that New York fashion was built on.
For his show last season, Helbers presented a modular group of garments that seemed to slide rather than sit on the models, wrapped around the body and molded with pleats and darts, rather than being cut from patterns and sewn.
For fall 2024, she built on that, employing even more refined materials and techniques (sculpting hammered black lamé into casual, approachable dresses via internal boning and pleating, and anchoring a gorgeous color cady wrap top cream using internal bead weights, as examples). to achieve an elegance that purred with ease.
“We're growing, it's character development,” Helbers said backstage of his process. “I made each piece in Paris sculpted on the body using couture fabrics in a very casual way and more casual fabrics and making them more couture,” she said of elevated everyday pieces, like a washed white poplin shirt with a collar that stepped away from with the collar just right, an emerald green pleated knit bodice with the ease of a T-shirt, and a whitewashed leather coat with a loose martingale belt, styled casually with one hand in the pocket. A pleated black lamé tunic over a spaghetti strap dress paired with ballet flats was also a totally modern take on the evening.
“It's not an issue, we are simply building a body of work that continues to grow. “It’s a mix of unconventional essentials, wardrobe pieces, but also basics,” the designer said. “I think every woman should have a combination of these that she can style according to her personality. For us, the most important thing about a dress is the women who wear it.”
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