A classic conversation when meeting a designer in the studio or behind the scenes always starts with the question: “What inspired you?” While designers have recently avoided statements like “I’ve been thinking about having my woman vacation in the south of France” in favor of talking about wardrobe building, there are plenty of interesting references popping up this season.
Some fashion inspiration comes directly. For Sarah Burton’s latest collection for Alexander McQueen, the designer turned to Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz, filling McQueen’s amorphous runway with her sculptures and incorporating Abakanowicz’s shapes and visual signatures into her unabashedly sensual designs; At Boss, designer Marco Falcioni explained that the collection’s overall office vibe came from watching an extremely strange 1999 film. To be John Malkovich. For other designers, like Ambush’s Yoon Ahn, it was more about the “attitude, angst and rebellious spirit” of ’90s musicians like Fiona Apple and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, but the clothes themselves didn’t reflect any specific style quirks none of the artists. .
Read on for an A-Z guide to all the films, books, artists and even art movements that inspired this season’s fashion.