Del Core’s Spring/Summer 2024 Ready-To-Wear Collection
SPRING 2024 READY-TO-WEAR

Daniel Del Core staged his Spring show in a glass-and-steel modernist venue perched atop a high-rise building. Suspended over a sweeping view of Milan’s landscape, the setting somehow read as a metaphor for his atypical designs, which live in a blurred territory between couture and RTW, a liminal space where extreme expressive creativity feels the pull (and the strain) of the laws of reality.

Del Core is a lover of architecture, and adventurous travels in wild, faraway destinations; his visuals are fed by the juxtaposition of these two sources of narration—organic shapes drawn from nature crystallized into sculptural renditions. For spring he kept the silhouettes elongated, with graphic and clean outlines. They were accented by blown-up exotic florals as if seen through a sliced glass and printed onto silky opera coats or strapless column tunics; undulating organic forms morphed into 3D bustiers seemed to stem like otherworldly botanicals from form-fitting, long evening dresses.

Playing on the same organic/sculptural dissonance, pointy corseted bustiers were lacquered in a lustrous black glow, made with the same technique that gives Steinway pianofortes their patina, or were polished to achieve the chrome shine of race cars. They looked slightly dangerous, like poisonous blooms sprouting from liquid long skirts. On a less disquieting note, draped dresses in flimsy jersey highlighted Del Core’s skilled understanding of the intricacies of fluid construction, which he honed worked alongside Alessandro Michele on special pieces for a coterie of celebrities. This is an arena where he feels comfortable: his loyal following of megastars—Florence Welch, Beyoncé, Björk, Anya Taylor-Joy—enjoys the theatricality of his designs.

This side of Del Core is creatively his strongest, and deserves to be expressed with more unrestrained flamboyance. His creations have the quality of execution and the inventive visual appeal of Haute Couture. As a young designer, he should give himself permission to be radical in expressing his artistic, imaginative flair. Fashion is at its best when it walks on transporting territory, making the imagination travel and dream. And fashion needs visionaries. Del Core is an adventurous traveler, and has dreams to offer. He should trust his fearless explorer’s instincts to move forward.

This article was originally published on Vogue Runway.

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