The second afternoon of Amsterdam Fashion Week saw Eva Korsten unveil her brand-new label FORTANIER with a debut collection powered by Google Pixel 11 and L’Oréal Professionnel. Following in the (in this case rather literal) footsteps of YUME YUME, an Amsterdam-based shoe brand known for its bold forms and bio-conscious aspirations that Korsten has led since co-founding in 2018, FORTANIER’s Collection One focalises the sculptural to exalt the dreamlike. Nothing is as serious as play, or as certain as flexibility; contradictions are to be worn with the utmost conviction.
A soft blush of kaleidoscopic light filters through the stained-glass windows of the quietly grand De Duif church, hitting the hardwood floors just in time to demarcate a number of new beginnings: here comes the beat. Adopting the maiden name of Eva Korsten’s great-grandmother, FORTANIER positions modern femininity as an inheritance of endless becoming. In shifting the proportions of the body, the garments shift focus to the proportions of possibility: the exaggerated silhouettes are evocative of playing dress-up in an elder matriarch’s closet, styling one’s futures after her past and present. An elegant cocktail dress adorned with a Renaissance-painted female nude is paired with heavy fisherman’s boots (one of YUME YUME’s signatures), which likewise accompany bomber jackets so oversized there is no need for bottoms – after all, the classic fingertip rule of the mini states that a skirt’s hem should reach or fall lower than the tips of one’s extended hands. To this end, the oversizing reads as expressly feminine, up and away from the trope of an ex-boyfriend’s hoodie – here, those bombers can only belong to the styling authority of an aloof older sister and her festival-crazy friends, with their baby tees, puffed-up skirts and impossible-seeming metallic statement heels. They dance on elevated platforms, filming themselves and their audiences, both present and only dreamt of, while you swap out your satin babydoll dress for something else entirely.
A bit of pale baby-pink lipstick is smudged on confidently during an ascent to a vanity counter behind mother’s back, and the beat goes on.
FORTANIER’s debut at De Duif felt like a fitting beginning for a label so preoccupied with the possibilities of becoming. In a space steeped in history, Korsten introduced a wardrobe that refuses to be bound by it, instead borrowing, exaggerating and reimagining the codes of femininity across generations. If Collection One is anything to go by, FORTANIER is not interested in defining the woman who wears it, but in giving her room to play, transform and decide for herself who she might become.