At Jil Sander, Luke and Lucie Meier said they were after “an enveloping feeling.” It’s not hard to understand why the designers are looking for softness. Pick a crisis, any crisis. But asked for specifics, Lucie had a question of her own: “Who doesn’t like comfort?” Indeed. That instinct led them to rounded silhouettes, double-face construction, and padding in the form of down coats that evoked pool inflatables and outerwear separates modeled on quilted bedspreads.
Even the tailoring didn’t have any hard edges. Though the template Jil Sander established so successfully in the 1990s was minimal and sharp, here curves were everywhere: from the shoulders and sleeves of the swishy suits that opened the show in a blaze of red, celadon green, and chocolate brown—a welcome change of scenery from all the gray and black elsewhere—to cape coats with infinity hems.
Rich textures were another running theme, selected to enhance a sense of nestling and cocooning. They leaned too much on the diamond quilting, and, let’s face it, there are limits to how far you can get out of the house in the furry shoes that many of the models wore. In general, the styling could’ve been taken down a notch or two. The over-ornamentation tended to distract from the calm, nurturing vibe the Meiers were trying to achieve.
But the openwork crochet in bouclé wool and mohair that they used for tops and skirts looked like a dream to wear, as did the knit pieces that can be reversed—on the opposite side they looked almost like a shaggy shearling. “We like this blurring of the silhouette, a softening of the lines,” Lucie said. The musical stylings were provided by Mk.gee, a 26-year-old from New Jersey with a debut album out this month, who was very much on their atmospheric wavelength.
