When Fashion
Activates the Senses

(Senses) Dopamine—the hormonal neurotransmitter for pleasure, motivation, and expectation—reacts to clarity. To subtle contrasts. To small moments of surprise. Through pulsating colors, lines that interrupt expectations, and shapes that are both precise and alive, a corresponding impulse is triggered. Contemporary fashion taps into exactly this. The result is an intelligent form of stimulation, as can be seen in these collections and their references.

Immediate Optimism
Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough, who founded the fashion label Proenza Schouler in 2002, made their debut as creative directors at Loewe with visual enthusiasm—open, energetic, almost disarmingly cheerful. It must be a liberating feeling to work without restrictions, to unfold freely, to experiment, and to trust one’s instinct. The optimism is not staged; it is embedded in the process.

This emotional register finds its visual reference at the entrance of the show location, where Ellsworth Kelly’s work Yellow Panel with Red Curve (1989) serves as a conceptual element. Kelly overcame the concept of the rectangular canvas and created compositions where monochromatic color forms exist as independent works. In this logic lies a vibrancy and tactility that are fundamental to the Loewe house, as well as a chromatic intensity and sensuality rooted in its Spanish identity. Reduced form, elemental color, absolute self-assurance: the work establishes clarity and vitality, even before a single look appears.

Loewe’s collection unfolds through the lens of Ellsworth Kelly. Saturated color is transferred to glossy leather, which is shaped into bell-like volumes; to flowing, multilayered shawl dresses and skirts that become conscious forms. Sportswear archetypes are condensed into sculptural silhouettes, enlivened by sensuality and Loewe’s distinct culture of craftsmanship.

Like Kelly’s work, this Loewe collection refrains from overloaded stories. It speaks of sensation: of intense colors, palpable physicality, and a subtle form of confidence. Loewe presents itself here through clarity and radiance—through sensual physicality and graphic silhouettes in bright colors.

Color and Line
At Akris, minimalism has never been the goal. Essence, on the other hand, certainly is. Creative Director Albert Kriemler uses form and material to highlight the wearer. Polk Smith broke free from the limits of the rectangular canvas, creating compositions in which color and line exist independently, held in balanced tension.

For Akris, this work by Leon Polk Smith becomes a point of reference. Crafted panel by panel in St. Gallen and assembled in Paris, its chromatic logic is translated directly into prints. Akris thus becomes a dialogue between color and line, form and freedom.