Daniel Del Core worked on reduction for pre-fall. Picking up the vibe of his spring show, there was a certain clarity in silhouettes and concision in his approach to construction here. But being keen on the adventurous, he experimented on unusual shapes, trying to regenerate predictable templates. “My imagination works as a laboratory,” he said.
Del Core has never met a microorganism he didn’t like: Fungi, lichens, molds, algae, bacteria, insects—they’re all part of his fantastical petri dish. Even his most visually sedate pieces exude a sort of unsettling sci-fi glamour. Case in point was a bustier in bonded jersey built with upward protruding pointy breasts, recalling the thorns of a rose or the horns of the Caucasus beetle, an alarming-looking scarab with a shiny black carapace. Its larvae are tender and gummy, and on a recent trip to Peru, he was offered them as a gourmet treat at a dinner party. The polite and not-so-squeamish Del Core obliged and tasted the delicacy.
The rather disquieting experience prompted him to ponder how a protective shield often hides deep vulnerabilities. It translated into a play of rigid fabrics opposing malleable textures, as in an elongated strapless evening dress, straight-cut and conveying a certain stiff poise, whose right side erupted in an unruly cascade of quivering wool filaments, “like lichen seeping from the bark of a tree,” as the designer put it. On a similar note, a severe boxy black pantsuit’s lapels stretched languidly into long flaps “as pods that crack open or a chrysalis peeling off its layers,” he said. A few looks were topped by an oblong black felt headpiece shading the face that hinted at the triangular shape of the head of a praying mantis, the femme fatale of the invertebrate family that famously eats its mate after sex.
Inspired by less ominous beings was a short red bustier dress, sculpted as the undulating petals of an orchid. A fan of plissé pleats peeked out from an ovoid cocoon skirt; 3D tufted pom-poms grew on net gloves or mohair knits, mimicking clumps of moss in the damp of forests. Del Core’s wedding-dress proposal was a long, sleek tunic in white lace with abstract botanical motifs he compared to crystallized flowers, overlaid by a soft cape armor with a triangular padded bustier that opened into a flowing gown.
Del Core’s peculiar entomologist eye has attracted celebrities the likes of Beyoncé and Björk, with whom he frequently collaborates. Björk looked otherworldly in one of his soft carapace creations at a recent concert in Nantes, France.
