Style Cartel loves London fashion week, especially for all the emerging fashion talent. One of our latest favourites is the NATASHA ZINKO FW23 collection. Creative Directed by Betsy Johnson !! Ready for a Sex in the City, the Incredible Hulk moment.
NATASHA ZINKO FW23
@sterlsc Natasha Zinko >>
“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” That’s Natasha Zinko’s statement for Fall/Winter 2023, taking to the London Fashion Week FW23 crowd backstage where she showed.
NATASHA ZINKO FW23
She’s a lawyer. He’s a physicist. She goes to court. She wears a blazer, a pencil skirt, and a pair of heels. She’s shy. He is too. They’re cousins. They also occasionally grow to become super-strong, green-skinned Hulks. Channelling the duality of Marvel Comics’ green cousins-Bruce (the original Hulk) and Jen (she got his ‘powers’ after a blood transfusion)-Natasha Zinko’s FW23 collection gives powerful women the centre stage in the court-appropriate personified by She-Hulk.
Superheroism is sometimes chaotic, so the two are only sometimes so clean-cut. The court-appropriate-embodied by corporate tailoring (pencil skirts, fitted blazers), formal footwear, compact briefcases, and a white silk tie-neck blouse recreated from the pages of She-Hulk’s original Savage run-isn’t flawless.
The show was held in a Quakers’ House; the FW23 “MONSTER” ball runway show started in darkness with a soundtrack of a vintage advertisement playing, almost like an old radio clip. Here, sexist remarks towards housewives of past times left behind and archaic societal expectations blared out of the speakers, but this was all soon interrupted by the harshness of bright lights, loud music, and of course, Natasha Zinko’s influential ensembles.
Skin-tight Hulk-inspired tops clashed with comic book print dresses, some with sharp shoulders and others appearing as morph suits. The former detail frequented much of the collection — à la Vetements, Balenciaga, and so on — with double-denim numbers bearing jackets that sported jeans attached to its back, adding the said shoulder accent or faux fur coats that again darted left and right on either side of the model’s head.
Runway Report
Volume was integral to the show’s symmetrical plays. At times it was barely there, ripped up by a monster to reveal the skin beneath, while other looks blew up in size — a black, floor-length puffer coat pumped with abdominal muscles and biceps or the silky white blouse cut with strong shoulder pads proved this to the max.
And “to the max” is precisely what Zinko was going for this season. It took classic cuts and took them to new realms, all heightened by what might happen if you awaken the monster inside us all.
Hot or not?
@natashazinkomagazin NZ FW23 MONSTER
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Photo credit: NATASHA ZINKO