“I don’t really want to mention timelessness,” said 032c’s Maria Koch during a preview of her new collection. “This is too much to ask for when it comes to fashion.”
The 032c ready-to-wear label debuted on the runway today in Paris. Having started as a line of merch for the magazine, subsequently developing into a fully fledged ready-to-wear collection and graduating to on-calendar presentations, this is somewhat of a momentous occasion for the team. “We always wanted to do a show because it feels like the holy grail when you have ready-to-wear,” said Koch, “but I also recognize how important it is for my team, I see the sparkle in their eyes, so I know how it impacts the mood around and within the brand.”
For fall, Koch said that she wanted to develop a versatile urban uniform. Having the 032c magazine as a sort of wellspring of fashion data with a tight readership equal parts cool and metropolitan, Koch is well situated to assess exactly what city dwellers want to wear.
This idea translated most successfully in the leather outerwear and separates, which hold sharp and body-hugging silhouettes the best. Also enticing was the denim—dyed in blue, green, or red and then oversprayed with black—and the nylon trousers that were creased, tailored, and cut as if they were made in wool (these were paired with a run of very Raf Simons–esque bomber jackets). Where the collection lost its momentum was in the slinky jersey styles, made to evoke Donna Karan “when she was the shit.” The tailoring too could use a little finesse, both in terms of cut and more identifiable proportions. 032c has a signature aesthetic, its accompanying label should harness it and push it forward.
Koch said that the notion of anti-timelessness came to her as she was reading a review of the work of Victor Man: “Somebody said his art was modern, but it doesn’t reflect history, present, or future; that it’s totally detached from the idea of time.” She’s right to reject the idea of timelessness—with it come associations with the classic and the traditional, neither of which describe Koch’s clothes. But this collection isn’t necessarily ahistorical either. Her clothes are undeniably contemporary.