A Détacher Fall 2019 Ready - Hubei EAS Tag Inc.

FALL 2019 READY-TO-WEAR

By Emily Farra

A Détacher fans, brace yourselves: Fall 2019 is Mona Kowalska’s last collection. She said business is good, and her Nolita shop will keep its doors open through the summer, but she’s been wanting to step back and focus on other creative projects for a while. Every time she felt ready to make the announcement, though, she came up with another piece she wanted to design, which evolved into more pieces, then a full collection . . . . In other words, she hasn’t just run out of ideas. The cornerstone of her Fall 2019 collection was a reversible jersey dress with a trompe l’oeil slip superimposed on the front. “I like the idea that even if you reverse it, it’s like you’re layering a slip under your dress,” she said. It could be worn a third way, too: folded down and belted as a skirt.

The rest of the collection mostly consisted of archival pieces and reissued prints, some of them nearly two decades old (Kowalska launched the label in 1998): a single-arm cape, a boxy padded jacket, a knitted jumpsuit. They’re easy, slightly off-kilter pieces that still look modern, and to Kowalska, that’s the best note to end on. She was hesitant to speak about her “legacy,” but summed it up thus: “I think we made a lot of really beautiful things, we pushed the envelope, and we did it seriously. We did it with the idea of longevity—we can pull something out from 17 years ago and it still looks up-to-date.”

It’s in direct opposition to the industry’s current anxious pace and demand for newness. “Everything in fashion is fast now,” she said. “Even fashion is fast-fashion.” Kowalska is understandably concerned with fashion’s impact on the environment and people; she works closely with artisans in Peru on her knitwear, and in general favored slow, small-scale production for her label (and, again, made pieces meant to last a few decades). We’re in a moment where designers are excited to talk about sustainability, but Kowalska isn’t convinced the industry as a whole has done enough to make significant changes. A designer’s efforts are just a drop in the bucket of a much larger issue. “If you look at the food industry, it did a really good job of communicating [about] organic food,” she pointed out. “Organic is now the norm. People understand that there’s a difference in terms of price and quality, and I don’t think the fashion industry has done that.”

She ended with some food for thought for her contemporaries and the new guard: “Live your politics.” You can’t complain about Trump’s climate change policies and then produce your collection in factories with dubious environment and social standards. The same goes for consumers who need to make educated shopping decisions. It’s helpful to think about fashion the way we think about food: Both are something we consume, and buying one consciously made dress—rather than a dozen poorly made ones—is arguably “better for you” both physically and emotionally.

Fall 2019 Ready-to-Wear