Paris Men’s Fashion Week Spring 2021

Ten years ago he was selling his T-shirts in his high school cafeteria before heading to college to study math. His irreverent world peopled with cartoon heroes and colorful artwork has grown exponentially since. J Balvin is a fan, and he has created ski goggles with A$AP TyY, tour merchandise for Ed Sheeran and collaborated with Puma and Nike.

In August, his biggest capsule to date will launch: a second collection with Puma in two drops, with five pairs of sneakers and 20 garments in each, both to be produced in 60,000 units. “That’s like times 70 anything I’ve done before,” Dillane said. The collaboration checks another of his boxes. “I got to do my own soccer cleat,” said the avid fan of the sport, who played professionally for a time and regularly features sporting references in his creations.

For Paris, Dillane has produced a stop-motion film featuring decapitated Barbie dolls, with 3-D-printed heads, wearing miniature clothes. “We were really nervous about doing something small, in case it doesn’t fit with the criteria, but then Dior released a small-scale dress. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

The miniature scale meant that the hand embroideries, patchworks and tie-dye motifs took on new proportions in the designs, he said. On the runway, further dreams come true: Salvador Dalí, Quentin Tarantino and Pelé, just a few of Dillane’s personal heroes, are among the models. “We felt like little kids,” he said. — Alex Wynne

EGONLAB

The brainchild of Paris-based Florentin Glemarec and Kévin Nompeix, EgonLab is among the new generation of digital-first brands — the young genderless label, launched just last year, already has 22,000 Instagram followers.

Describing themselves as visual artists, they offer a tailored lineup with a twist — their distinctive dip-dyed tartan suit was a social media hit, and quilted shirts are another house signature.

Their third collection, to debut online Thursday with a video featuring real-life models encrusted in a 3-D universe, will feature a focus on the tailored silhouette and new elements including deconstructed corsets, the label’s first shoes — cue knee-high lace-up boots — and a collaboration with Sergio Tacchini combining sportswear influences with EgonLab’s stricter aesthetic. The collaboration will account for around a third of the offering, Nompeix said over the phone, and is an integral part of the collection.

“The collaboration was also a response to the crisis, because we reduced our main collection,” Nompeix said. “We’re self-financed, which has made things difficult, but it also means we’re more flexible, because we have less fixed costs, and it’s just the two of us.” EgonLab works on a pre-order basis in order to avoid waste. “Sustainability is very important to us, we don’t want to overproduce,” he explained.

The pair, both in their mid-20s, met in 2017 on a shoot — Nompeix is also a modeling agent and Glemarec a stylist and photographer. Prior to founding EgonLab, Glemarec was one half of the Icosae label with his brother Valentin, but they parted ways due to disagreements over the brand’s creative direction.

EgonLab’s first collection launched at the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode’s Designers Apartment showroom last year.

Their second, presented at the Fédération’s Sphere showroom during men’s fashion week in January, picked up orders from 10 retailers. When lockdowns hit, all but one canceled, leaving them with just two stockists — U.S.-based Zen and their own e-boutique. “Buyers are approaching us again now for this third season, so we hope to recoup the boutiques we lost because of the pandemic,” Nompeix said. — A.W.

PHILIP HUANG

As COVID-19 fuels interest in slow fashion, one Bangkok-based brand is well positioned to cater to consumers looking for a stylish spin on sustainability.

Philip Huang, founded in 2015 by husband-and-wife team Philip Huang and Chomwan Weeraworawit, specializes in clothes and accessories made from handmade textiles using only natural dye from indigo plants and organic fibers produced in the Sakon Nakhon region of Thailand.

The brand has enjoyed high visibility thanks to the couple’s high-profile circle of friends, which includes artists Rirkrit Tiravanija and Sandro Kopp, award-winning filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia, with whom they produced masks during the coronavirus lockdown.

But the business has remained small, due in part to the constraints of producing by hand with the “indigo grandmas” of the Isan region. Now the brand has restructured production and is seeking strategic wholesale partners via its digital showroom during Paris Men’s Fashion Week.

“We reconsidered how we put together the collections so that wholesale would be possible, whereas before we went really deep with the artisanal pieces. That is super slow fashion and this is the stuff we really love, but very difficult to scale,” said Huang, a former model who is the design director of the label.

In addition, it has opened a showroom in Bangkok that will act as a studio and a place for its community to come together.

Huang’s spring 2021 “Oasis” collection features items like loungewear renditions of traditional shapes like fisherman trousers, pajamas and a doctor’s coat; organic cotton knits, and the brand’s first digital print, which it hopes will entice younger generations to get involved in the traditional process of indigo dyeing.

At the same time, Huang and Weeraworawit are celebrating the history of the craft with “Finding Oasis,” a visual essay they made with Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the renowned cinematographer whose credits include “Call Me By Your Name.”

“In the last three months, there’s definitely been more openness for things that are handmade things,” said Weeraworawit, the brand’s creative director. “We both feel that there’s definitely more bandwidth from people, because everyone’s had to slow down. In a way, they have more time to listen to stories.” — Joelle Diderich

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