There are few designers who truly need no introduction (Chanel doesn’t, Schiaparelli somehow does) but Philip Treacy, perennially dubbed the world’s most famous milliner, deftly slots into this category.
The haute-couture hat purveyor, publicly innovating since his NCAD days, has a client list that exceeds our magazine’s entire word count. Post Isabella Blow – the source of his first big break – and post OBE, Treacy’s star is still prevailing, testified by the latest feather in his cap: a design-director role for VIVID Grand Show, taking place in Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast.
With Stefano Canulli devising costumes under Treacy’s tutelage, and the latter responsible for the show’s spellbinding headgear, each scene is kaleidoscopic from start to finish. Beyond these awe-striking visuals, however, lies ground-breaking production: its author/director Krista Monson is the first woman to pen and direct a Grand Show at the Palast in its almost 100 years of its existence.
The narrative she weaves, centred on a female android’s quest for self-discovery, proves as dialogue-instigating as the design itself. Berlin-dwellers, make a beeline.
