“Exploring new territory”: Simone Bellotti shifts things up at Jil Sander
Just one season into his tenure at Jil Sander, Simone Bellotti presented a sophomore collection that marked a new direction from his much-applauded debut collection.
Among the many debut collections that defined last season, Simone Bellotti’s for Jil Sander was one of the strongest. Sculptural to a forensic point, it reflected a level of studiousness that felt obsessive in the best possible way. This season, he went in a different direction. “We started from the idea of the home as a place where you want to stay and feel good and comfortable, but at the same time a place you want to leave. You want to stay but also explore new territories. It also relates to the idea of a fashion house: respecting the codes but also finding new stories,” he said after the show. “The first season was more about finding a very clean and precise line, and reducing fabrics; creating space. This time I wanted to do the opposite, so I added a huge amount of useless things.”
Gone were the obsessively considered hyper-pure shapes. In their place, Bellotti introduced loose panels of fabric at the back seams of coats or along the outer seams of trousers, which hung there and swayed from side to side like a form of useless embellishments, to use his own term. Dresses were gathered at the back with overflowing fabric folded in geometrical forms, skirts were slit up into bigger volumes, and draped dresses and skirts enveloped the physique like fallen parachutes. All this surplus fabric – presented in a mashed-up running order – painted a decided departure from the tight, finessed and super-refined expression that characterised Bellotti’s debut for Jil Sander, and which could easily have taken another few seasons of exploration without getting boring.
The first season was more about finding a very clean and precise line, and reducing fabrics; creating space. This time I wanted to do the opposite, so I added a huge amount of useless things.
Simone Bellotti
“Roots are important but it’s important to discover something new,” Bellotti said, confessing he had felt like doing something less controlled than September’s collection. In a fashion world where safe is currently favoured over courageous, that was a commendable attitude. In that same fashion climate, minimalism and quiet are hailed as the look du jour, often with pretty uninspiring outcomes. What Bellotti did for Jil Sander last season was a superior take on that mentality, and one that stuck in the mind. His sophomore collection was at its best when it veered away from the flou and surplus fabric and back into that forensic study of sculpting and fit. Case in point: the snug, misfit coats and suits that appeared here and there, the almost architectonic knits, and his long, lean, clinical coats.
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