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FashionMusicArtCulture

Bally Makes Connections

21 September 2024

Blending the influence of 1980s Italian designer Romeo Gigli with cowbells—a ubiquitous symbol of Swiss culture and the bucolic—and Zürich author and sound poet Hugo Ball might suggest a lack of cohesion. Ball wrote the Dada Manifesto, giving name to a movement that was then a loose collection of artists and agitators. The name 'Dada' was plucked at random from the dictionary. The word's meaning therefore resides in its meaninglessness.

For Bally, designer Simone Bellotti melded these three disparate elements together like butter melting on a hot cornetto. With executive design and careful styling decisions, the collection showcased how Bally (which was founded in Schönenwerd, Switzerland, in 1851) is re-establishing itself as a significant player on the fashion circuit.

There was plenty of strong outerwear, which, taking into account the summer season, did not feel heavy or hot. The opening look featured a cropped jacket with a rounded drop-shoulder, high-waisted pants, and a leather waistcoat with western arrow pocket detailing. Pieces throughout the show maintained these details, some exaggerated and falling off the shoulder—a double-breasted coat with 7/8 trousers, maroon Mary Janes, and a bag was one example.

Other jackets and duster coats were more sculptural with their hourglass silhouettes. Here, Gigli’s focus on the curve and his nipping in at the jacket waist came to the fore.

Elsewhere, Bellotti adopted a bell shape (i.e. the cowbell), as seen in a silver leather skirt and in a peplum top in a shade of blush, worn over a skirt. The bell form was repeated in black, worn over trousers that grazed the ankle, and paired with a belt that featured a large silver-engraved buckle. One look combined the ideas, with a nipped-in waist that flared out over a bell-shaped skirt in icy blue—this was the strongest distillation of both elements.

Masculine looks included a boxy Nehru-collared jacket, overcoats in leather and Mackintoshes. These were lifted by splashes of bright blue in shirts worn underneath or by navy trousers. To tie in the subtle western aesthetic, a cropped Harrington and chore jacket was paired with boot-cut trousers, with one look featuring a brown waistcoat, again with that western arrow pocket detailing.

While there were definite elements of couture and references to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s, none of it felt overly mawkish or bogged down in excessive references. Also, the clothing never felt stark (I’m thinking of those industry vanguards, Jil Sander or Helmut Lang) or overly intertextual. Instead, it had a street sensibility to it. It was an assemblage of eras and aesthetics and, as Ball wrote in the Dada Manifesto, “It [was] a question of [making] connections and of loosening them up a bit to start with.”

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