Envers - fall/winter 2008
Envers presents a worldly view of fall/winter 2008, balancing out glamour with welcome simplicity.
For women, the voile dress is a sweeping white wrap with stencil embroidery, with all the right bias cuts. A black French lace top is paired with a cream peau de soie skirt with a bow on top, an ironic touch that perhaps suggests we are not to take—wink, wink—this prim posturing too seriously. The black velvet we see here has nothing to do with Alannah Myles, and is instead more of a costume piece with its cascading ruffles and hand muff. The flashes of hot pink? That’s just designer Yves-Jean Lacasse interpreting the kimono in his own playful way.
The open-front, black lace dress accomplishes what so many of Envers’ more complicated pieces cannot—erasing itself into the body’s silhouette.
The men’s wear smacks of European folk, and we would have it no other way. A heavily patterned vest falls way below the waist, on top of a French-cuffed shirt with light floral embroidery. The jackets are over-the-top, either wool creations that swallow up the man, or red satin dandies with that evoke ceremony and rites of passage.
Envers is perhaps not best-known for pants, yet one of the stand-out pieces was a high-waisted pair with black-on-black square detailing.
Daniel Cox, Fashion Editor
Marek Wlazlo, Photographer
