As far as Danial Aitouganov and Imruh Asha are concerned, the party is just getting started for their label Zomer.
For its second show, the first on the official Paris calendar, the pair were still really about having fun and expressed that through foil pom-poms popped on shoulders and heads as if the models were mid-party. Even the season’s beaded mules rattling with every step added a rhythmic spin to the soundtrack.
But Zomer’s fall collection, inspired by the work of Argentine painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, meant business.
“What we liked about his work is that his paintings go from 2D to 3D,” Aitouganov said before the show. And since cloth into clothes is a similar process, the sculptural side of Zomer came to the fore in an asymmetric gray coat with a contrasting wide red hem, a cape-dress with a slash for the arm on one side or trousers that had a detachable folded waistband.
Though these were standouts that showed Aitouganov’s experienced hand in interesting detailing, simpler pieces, like deceptively simple draped jersey dresses, looked equal parts sensible and shapely.
Continuing their artistic inspiration were glass bust pieces by Home in Heven, the artistic couple Breanna Box and Peter Dupont who are also behind Coperni’s glass Swipe bag, and prints created in-house during sketching sessions with the whole team. Those were the kinds of detail that stylist Asha knows whets the appetite of an audience, as he remarked.
For the final bow, in a tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to last season’s mini-me versions of the designers, out came an older pair portraying Aitouganov and Asha.
It was a fun moment but also a canny reminder that the duo want to be here for the long haul, in case the clothes hadn’t been clear enough.
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