Eli Russell Linnetz continues to build a narrative wardrobe with his thirteenth collection. Far from Venice Beach, this season the designer sets a fictional scene in a boarding school in the Swiss Alps, where traditional tweed collides with an aesthetic of censorship.
The “preppy” exercise is a classic of American fashion. But where its predecessors sought a sense of belonging, Eli Russell Linnetz sees it as armor. With “The Void”, the Californian label doesn’t pay homage to the codes of the Ivy League or European boarding schools; it saturates them to the point of disquiet. The silhouette no longer serves to integrate a row, but to camouflage itself within it, the better to subvert it.
The architecture of censorship
The centerpiece of this narrative is the “Redacted Dress”. A black graphic bar interrupts the silhouette, materializing the idea of anonymity and censorship directly on the textile. It’s not a decorative motif, but a visual obstruction that conveys the collection’s purpose: in the fictional power circles described by Linnetz, identity is a currency and anonymity a protection.
This logic of erasure and confusion is reflected in the treatment of genders. The masculine wardrobe slides into the feminine and vice versa, mimicking an exchange of garments dictated by urgency or strategy rather than style.
Collision of materials: Tweed and Nylon
The collection contrasts two technical worlds. On the one hand, the statutory rigidity of 80s power suits, embodied in dense tweeds and textured wools. On the other, the intrusion of protective and sportswear.
Nylon-wool blazers blur the line between suit jacket and athletic gear. Black lambskin “Polizia” coats and biker jackets evoke a rawer, more urban authority, striking against the wisdom of white cotton Oxford shirts.
This contrast culminates in the use of skunk fur on coats and accessories. A provocative choice of material that plays on the ambivalence of luxury: a texture that is visually rich but culturally laden with noxious connotations.
Accessories as narrative
ERL’s expansion into footwear and accessories follows the same logic of detour. Leather moccasins are lined with fur, transforming the bourgeois shoe into an almost savage object. Collaboration with jewelry designer Tom Binns adds an extra layer of controlled chaos to these strict silhouettes.+1
The wardrobe reads like a social survival kit: velvet or viscose ties, aged cowhide belts and PVC bags complete this new kind of uniform, where privilege is no longer a given, but a target.
The Detail: The Censored Dress The “Redacted Dress” uses a black graphic yoke to cross out the garment. This visual device, borrowed from classified documents, transforms the absence of information into the focal point of the design.
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