Area Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear Collection

The unmistakable noise of flies buzzed through speakers as we waited for the Area show to start. The invitation, which had arrived in a brown paper bag earlier in the week and caused a minor sensation on social media, came in the shape of two squishy bananas (fake). “This season is all about fruits,” Piotrek Panszczyk said before the show at his studio in Chinatown. “The beauty of them, but also the symbolic meaning of them. In a way you can think of fruit as something fresh, a new start, but when it starts decaying, it becomes about mortality.”

And so the show opened with sculptural banana looks: a cropped top and a skirt made of oversized banana sculptures (the bananas were facing out, like in a bunch), followed by a jacket with banana sculptures surrounding the bodice, followed by a strapless denim mini dress, all in tie-dye shades of pink, purple, and white which were meant to mimic the colors of bruised, rotten fruit. The next dress was made of small, individually draped and formed banana shapes that were joined together in the style of a bandage-dress, hugging the body and leaving nothing to the imagination. It was inspired by Madame Grès. “I always look at [her] through all our work, but we always translate [the inspiration] into rigid crystals. This season, we really started going back to fabric, going back to basics.” He added, “It’s not always about the hardness of embellishment, I think for us it’s also a new leap.”

And while there were many sculptural pieces on the runway, it was indeed in the softness that Panszczyk found the most success.“This season there’s way more fluidity, we’re all about construction. We really started lightening it up, using laces, and fluid fabrics.” Such as the halter neck gown with a silhouette like an amphora made from a graphic black and white grape print, which was elegant and modern, or the red strapless empire waist flocked tulle gown with black lurex whose pattern brought to mind squashed grapes when wine is being made in a very sensual way.

The fabric was equally well-suited to more market ready pieces, like a cropped top and mini skirt and an a-line mini dress with a criss-cross neckline. Lace catsuits came with subtle branding, a tiny ‘A’ meant to resemble flies, while a sporty short tracksuit was sexy and irreverent and exactly the kind of thing that makes Area so popular with retailers.

Another highlight of the show was its diverse cast, which featured a few older models as well as a few quote-unquote “curve” models, the latter wearing tailored gowns which hugged their bodies in the right places. “Aging also comes with beauty,” Panszczyk explained. “And I think for us it’s always important to showcase these different stages of life.” He added, “for us, it’s really about balancing these ideas, like how can it be about really, truly fantasy? And how can you evoke this kind of energy in real life?”