For Prada's hauntingly beautiful Spring offering, Miuccia Prada used trailing threads; unfinished edges; and coarse, plain fabrics as foils to sumptuous brocades.
For Céline's Spring fare, Phoebe Philo kitted out tops in masses of fringe—a motif that might have felt heavy were it not for the cool cutouts they accompanied.
Vive la révolution! Chanel's utterly soigné take on classic fatigues shirting.
At Bottega Veneta, raw edges lent a certain dynamism to softly domestic dresses.
Fraying metallic jacquard at Dries Van Noten conjured up decadence gone deliciously to seed.
Frayed edges and fringe may not be headline news, but if the droves of designers who embraced them for Spring are any indication, they’re overdue for a serious revival. Under Dries Van Noten’s banner of sylvan bohemianism, tops came romantically threadbare, like the lone possessions of a woman who had left her world of privilege for a woodland utopia. The boys of Proenza Schouler broke down the classic argyle into cutout knits, with stray yarns dissolving dreamily into cascading fringe skirts. And at Marques’Almeida, where unraveling seams have long been the designers’ bread and butter, Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida pushed raw-edged denim to new heights.
But across the board, the Spring collections were a good, long way from tattered tees and the festival circuit’s ubiquitous denim cutoffs. Instead, this was a super-polished take on deconstruction.
View the slideshow to see 13 of the season’s most compelling reasons to cut loose.
