From the brand’s emergence in 2021, Francon has positioned their approach to womenswear as highly contextual to the very act of dressing, and their design process as driven by architectural thinking rather than the demands of a conventional fashion calendar. Creative director May Kaan and architect Kees Kaan want us to look at when we use something and how we use it, how behaviour adapts to surroundings — place and occasion always come first. And, although their debut show ‘Vantage Point’ was presented within the framework of Amsterdam Fashion Week, the setting for the occasion was nothing short of demanding.
For their first catwalk, the duo chose Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen — an unprecedented solution to most art institutions’ innate inability to show the overwhelming majority of their holdings at a time, purpose-built by the namesake museum in the label’s native Rotterdam. Encircled by the museum’s full 151,000-piece collection, the presentation honed in on Francon’s core fascination with architectural archetypes and the subsequent isolation and exposure each one facilitates. As the guests climbed the depot’s steep stairs, each trying to find a comfortable spot in between glass enclosed artefacts and masterpieces, the evening’s designated narrator greeted each and every guest, the rhythmical repetition of names and welcome’s melting into an iterative soundscape. Once all settled, she laid out the brand’s mission statement by sing-talking through three of Francon’s five chosen archetypes: the Lake House – a secluded spot reduced to necessity, where time stands still; the Tower – a contemplative ego boost that shrinks the rest of one’s busy life into the ground far below; and the Lake House, carefree private property where ‘we don’t think about work’ while ostensibly surrounded by its fruit. Notably, the clothes – with outfits ranging from classic silhouettes of relaxed wool suits and pyjamas in luxurious silks, to plump knits worn over miniskirts, to evening only satin dresses and decidedly extravagant bedazzled mesh pieces – emphasised even further the transitory nature of any position one assumes, even when taking a vantage point of an established form. “We walk, we walk, from place to place, from setting to setting, we walk, the walk….” the narrator persevered, over and over again, as the models ascended into conservationist heaven via a giant glass elevator cabin any architect could only dream of.
