Fforme Spring 2024 Ready-to-Wear

“I think our clothes come alive when you see them on a person,” Fforme’s Paul Helbers said a few days before the label’s runway debut at his studio in SoHo. “I thought we needed to throw out a lineup of looks and see the movement in an intimate setting.” After two seasons showing by appointment only in gallery spaces in Manhattan, the designer was bringing us to the The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, where Lesley Mok, a “classical minimalist” percussionist, was going to provide a live soundtrack for the show. “Fforme is really for women to express themselves, I want to see them subvert our dressing; and Lesley is going to beat the hell out of her drums in a Fforme dress,” said Helbers with a devilish grin. And she did. After some delays and a false start—when from backstage Helbers could be heard saying “Five more minutes, guys!,” which the audience found delightful—Mok walked out holding a a felt mallet in each hand, wearing one of Fforme’s signature draped tees and a black skirt, sat behind the drum set and started playing. The first model walked out in a long white jacket with an asymmetrical closure, paired with another of Fforme’s signature black draped tees and a pair of wide-legged trousers. Helbers had explained how he’d been attempting to do tailoring without doing tailoring: no interfacing, no unnecessary layers. “There’s a lot more softness in the collection,” he said. The jacket had the ease of a cardigan, with billowing volume towards the back where the elbow naturally bends, achieved by a curvilinear “reverse raglan sleeve” whose delicate curvatures seemed almost like a work of art. A black hooded leather jacket had delicately gathered cuffs which scrunched up at the elbows and had the same elegance as a balloon sleeve would on a decadent formal gown. It was a slightly shiny and malleable—but not entirely soft—leather, ready to be lived in. “We sort of know who our clients are, and I would love to do a project where in 40 years we find them and photograph them with their leather jackets to see how they’ve aged,” said Helbers. It was paired with matching leather straight-leg trousers and a stretch leather tank. There was another version in silver with a surprisingly masc energy that was only intensified by the matching shorts and black tee it was shown with. It was sort of like a boxer uniform Héctor “Macho” Camacho would’ve worn back in the ’90s.