If Sid Neigum’s collection felt a little darker this season, it’s because the designer has been focusing more on texture and pattern making than color of late. A terminal science geek, he’s also been looking to outer space for inspiration, for example transposing symbols like the starbursts and zigzag motifs engraved on Voyager 1 (launched 46 years ago and currently orbiting the constellation of Ophiuchus) into tattoo-like thread embroidery on a stretch mesh bodice.
“It’s as if alien civilizations found the probe and could map out where Earth is located,” the designer said via Zoom from his showroom in Toronto. As it happens, he noted, there is a Golden Record on that space probe: it may be the farthest manmade thing from Earth right now, but you can still find it on Spotify.
Which speaks volumes about how granular Neigum can get, and brings us back to that dress. “I was thinking that creating a time capsule as a piece would be interesting in the same way that a space probe is,” he said. Neigum has also been working on taking pleating into a new dimension, using a tessellated mold to craft even more complicated vertical and horizontal pleats to intriguing, waffled effect.
Fall included a few new takes on his popular interlocking dresses, which need the tension of the body to come into their own—a process the designer described as “complex to make but fun.” Sheer slip dresses in silk and gold viscose knit nodded to the ’90s revival cropping up pretty much everywhere right now. A stretch velvet mini-dress with an uneven construction—its shoulders appear twisted on the hanger—comes to rights once it’s put on. Slick, shiny sequins turned up on maxi skirts slit up to there or minis, and even the briefest of briefs. In a sexed-up vein, a lace-up grommet corset or skirt could be fastened depending on what the wearer wants to show, but most of all those looked like they were made to be taken off. A sequined bustier dress nodded to this season’s zebra reboot without going literal, instead channeling a wavy, deep-sea organic feel.
In terms of tailoring, boxy new looks—among them a shiny fuchsia suit in bonded satin, and a black jacket with a fully functional combination lock closure—pointed to a foray into menswear. There’s a reason for that: this fall Neigum will marry his longtime love, fellow designer Chloé Gordon of the Canadian fashion brand Beaufille. Each of them is designing their own look, but here’s betting that milestone will trickle down in one way or another.
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