It’s Kiko day. There’s a calm chaos at the American Cathedral in Paris; makeup artists are running around the corridor doing last-minute touch-ups, models with beehives are swaying around, photographers’ cameras are flashing and clicking at them while press are filming their usual social content. Kiko Kostadinov is doing fit checks, and the twinning long, dark-haired figures – womenswear creative director duo Laura and Deanna Fanning – are hovering around. The Australian-born twin sisters have been leading the womenswear side at Kiko Kostadinov for some time now, skyrocketing it into it-girl status, and this season is no different. There’s new bag silhouettes, pilot-inspired suiting, updated takes on the brand’s cult hybrid shoes and the latest collab with denim GOAT Levi’s.
As the show’s about to take off, an announcement in a soft Australian accent advises the guests to place their items in the overhead lockers, and the queue of models in the Parisian cathedral corridor starts moving along towards the runway.
The SS25 collection is taking flight to transit spaces with Pan Am-vibe looks, beehives, pilot gear and stamps. “We were thinking about moments of identity in transit and transience,” explains Laura Fanning. “We created four characters, and built all the looks around these characters. We have the suiting, which is aviation-inspired – it has a strength to it, and a formality, but all the girls are dressed in their own way. Then we have one character who is very light and free, we thought about her in terms of metaphysical travelling, lightness, like when you think about your space, moving on a plane and trying to make yourself really small. That’s why we’ve got these floaty moments. And then we have another character who is what we imagined to be a warrior: structured, boots, some looks have big shoulders but they’re soft, they’re made of cashmere. And for our fourth character we played with vintage stamps and created a custom print for our Levi’s collaboration.”
Futurism nostalgia
“We listened to a lot of Brian Eno’s music for airports while working on this collection,” says Laura, giggling. “He has a few good ambient albums.” The collection is inspired by a time when flying and travel were considered to be glamorous and had an element of grandiose allure – unlike the current experience of eating Pret at Gatwick’s North Terminal. “We dreamed of that process of dressing for a space to go nowhere – that transient space, that non-place,” says Deanna. The clothing has obvious aeronautical references, with soft pilot-wear, air hostess-style updos and Petit Prince-esque flying scarves being at the forefront of the collection. The duo researched through the history of travel uniforms to bring out an essence of “anonymising and freeing” looks with vintage ‘50s and ‘60s American and Japanese influences with their silhouettes.
You can see that low-key yet freeing aesthetic throughout the different characters and outfits, especially with the shoes and accessories. “We thought the bag would suit our character in her travels,” says Laura. “It’s a shape that references something from the past, but we’ve made it more personalised to make it feel more today.” And the cult Kiko shoes are ever-present: “We’re always really intrigued about how there’s such a dichotomy between comfortable shoes and fashion shoes, how these two worlds can collide, and create a girl who feels comfortable in what she’s wearing.”
Japanese archival references
Kiko Kostadinov has a history of Japanese referencing, both in its utilitarian menswear but also in its cutesy, obscure womenswear style of bricolage sensibilities with colourful, subversive knits, cross-bred shoes, and layered textures made for the ethereal, urban fairies of the world. And although this season tracks the route of the brand, the designer duo takes a vintage detour, embedding Japanese fashion history with this collection.
“Before we started back in October, we visited the library in Bunka [Fashion College] in Tokyo,” says Deanna. “We went through their archives and there were lots of ‘50s and ‘60s Soen magazines [a Japanese monthly women’s magazine] in black and white. We had a few beautiful images of suiting, and women with these bee-hive updo hairstyles on our moodboard for this season.”
Levi’s, custom stamps and memories
The fourth Levi’s-wearing character is a nostalgia-coded girl: “She collects memories over time,” explains Laura. “I guess in a way she’s a little bit nostalgic, but it’s really about her journey.” Which explains the custom badges and stamps on the pieces. “It’s about owning your space or not being able to, and the way you dress in that space.”
For their new collab, the twins took a deep dive into the brand’s rich archive. “They’re just so incredible with their washes,” says Laura. “Almost two years ago, we were lucky enough to visit their archive, see pieces that were 130 years old. And we wanted to focus on creating a wash for the lighter denim. We thought about shapes that were very Levi’s, like ‘70s motorcycle jackets, and how they almost feel like flight suits.”
Both sisters nod in agreement that the printed look is their favourite. “We started with vintage prints and old stamp collections and collaged them together,” says Deanna. “When we approached it for Levi’s we thought perhaps using actual stamps doesn’t feel so right, so we created stamps based on imagined stamps. We spent time making renditions of actual stamps, and embedded elements of our own time memories – for example Kiko and I’s dog Dante is on one of the stamps, some stamps are from Australia but instead they say ‘Australiia’. It was a fun process.”
The show’s notes phrase it perfectly: “Losing yourself in the world, finding yourself in your clothes.”
All images by Eric Aydin-Barberini for Culted
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