Sies Marjan: the designer inspiring us to dress in head-to-toe colour

Step out of the shadows, it’s a technicolour dream season
Aymeline Valade at Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2018
Getty Images Europe
Karen Dacre10 April 2018

Let’s be frank: if you’re looking for a straightforward, everyday look that will take you seconds to throw together of a morning, head-to-toe colour is not an obvious choice.

That would be the trouser suit, this season’s other definitive trend. Or a pyjama shirt and wide-leg trouser combo. At a push, a floral dress. Anything but head-to-toe colour. Brights, after all, are phenomenally terrifying stuff.

And yet here we are, riding the crest of a technicolour dream season.

Colour at its brightest and most unapologetic is perhaps the fashion world’s greatest paradox. How else to explain a movement that counts standing out from the crowd as its reason for being but scrunches up its nose at anything that’s deliberately ostentatious?

Take a look at the front row of a Paris catwalk show to see this juxtaposition at work: there you’ll find the colour lovers — bathed in fuchsia, determined to catch the glance of a street-style photographer — and the hardcore fashion elite who would rather torch their favourite navy sweater than be identified as someone trying to get noticed.

Paris Fashion Week Autumn/ Winter 2018
Getty Images

This season, though, brights that are as big as they are bold have the potential to enjoy wider appeal. Notably because they have fallen into the hands of some remarkable talents and are being presented in a sophisticated new light.

At the heart of this is Sander Lak, the Dutch designer shedding light on Sies Marjan with his unapologetic approach to colour. Having honed his craft under Dries Van Noten — the unrivalled master of print and shade — Lak has been brightening New York’s fashion scene since 2015.

Lisa Hahnbueck at Paris Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2018/2019
Getty Images

His vision sees neutral wardrobe punctuation swapped out for bolder options, which means you’ll find little in the way of classic white T-shirts or dark blazers but rather a collection in which every piece is a headliner. Unlike many other designers, Lak begins the process by creating colour combinations. “We don’t even think about shapes or clothes at that stage,” he confirms, “we just look at the colour card as an abstract thing, and when we feel it’s right we move on.”

Sies Marjan SS18
Sies Marjan SS18

In Lak’s work there’s not only a spectrum of shades on offer — a quality the Sies Marjan house cultivates by mixing each individual hue in-house — but a collection which is, in many ways, picture-perfect. This season the result is Post-it yellow silk skirts, berry milkshake camis and milky-blue jackets.

Lak is joined by Christopher Kane, who struck a visual harmony with acid yellow and sugary pistachio in his SS18 offering, and Marni, a leader in the art of clashing, who fused cornflower blue with letterbox red.

Christopher Kane SS18
AFP/Getty Images

There’s a certain courageousness to the work of designers who are motivated by colour. But are those who find themselves drawn to the brighter side of life solely motivated by a determination to stand out from the crowd? Lak thinks there’s more to it than our egos. “A desire to wear colour and brighten things up is very much a reaction to what’s happening in the world. There is a lot of black and navy out there. When the world is feeling dark and moody, we don’t want to dress like we are going to a funeral every day”.

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