A.F. Vandevorst Spring 2017 Ready-to-Wear Paris Fashion Week

For A.F. Vandevorst’s Spring collection, An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx worked with artist Dirk Braeckman on a short film to bring their designs to life—departing from their usual runway show format. The clip, which features a trio of recalcitrant misfits ranging around the Belgian music festival Pukkelpop, opens with a voice-over of this verse from Tom Waits’s “First Kiss”: “She drove a big ol’ Lincoln with suicide doors and a sewing machine in the back.” Vandevorst explained: “It’s the story of a woman who, on the day of her marriage, decides not to get married. So she runs off with her friends and goes to a festival.” Liberation and rebellion as inspiration, at getaway speeds and with every last bit of caution thrown to the wind.

Vandevorst and Arickx took, say, a corset, deconstructed it, and sewed it on the hip, at an angle, as if it was in the midst of being taken off. A men’s tuxedo jacket had zips at the waist, like that runaway bride had stolen it off the groom’s back, cut it up in haste, and slipped it back on for her jaunt to the fairgrounds. This A.F. Vandevorst scenario also offered plenty of great boots and negligee dresses that were sheared off from the pelvis in the front. “The thought is like the front of a shirt is tucked in, but the back is trailing,” said Vandevorst. Leave it to these two to put a new spin on the (now ubiquitous) term festival dressing.