Unveiling his Spring Summer 2024 collection at Paris Fashion Week last Wednesday, Walter Van Beirendonck used sartorial styling to ask the question: What is real and what is surreal? The answer is a disruption of what we think we know, through a collection of avant-garde ensembles. Love this of Beirendonck he makes you want to think and delve into as far as you want to go.

The story goes that the explorer Alfred Isaac Middleton went in search of the famed lost city of Dawleetoo and was promptly never seen again. Inspired by AI generated images of Middleton and the alleged lost city, DAWLEETOO. So the inspiration for the collection first came from research. Van Beirendonck generated AI imagines to imagine what this city might have looked like. This catalysed an exploration into the influence of AI on our rapidly changing world. Using generative AI visuals to create the, he juxtaposes realism and surrealism in a trippy range of futuristic pieces. Creating an alien alphabet using AI, the pieces are adorned with these pictorial characters that could be used in this mixed reality that we are now occupying.  

Made for an army of new world explorers and cosmic outsiders, DAWLEETOO plays with hard materials for cover, with soft and vulnerable pieces underneath. Largely monochromatic, or bicoloured with red and whites, or blacks and yellows, the collection is made up of padded vests, mesh bodysuits, jackets with oversized collars, sharp corners and geometric cut-outs, shirts with elegant ruffling, and pieces with cinched detailing.  

 Oh and the walking models with plastic body bags at the end, spray painted with skeletons ? Well there could be a lot of answers to that … and not just ALFRED ISAAC MIDDLETON.