Campillo SS26 Collection Review
View Campillo SS26 collection here
It is a rare joy these days to genuinely find any brands that catch not only your eyes, but your heart, one that makes you look forward to their next collection. I've spoken enthusiastically about qualities that I see in designers I choose to follow. Not just to critique or give my flowers, but to wholeheartedly follow their work with the intention to see their development, for better or for worse. One of these qualities is narrative consistency, where I believe that if the designers do not revisit or re-explore the same ideas from previous collections, it seems suspicious and fraudulent to me. Easy on paper but hard to abide by, given the temptation to stray into consumer trends even when it is so blatantly out of character, but the dollar sign is stronger. Campillo, founded by Patricio Campillo, is one of those newer brands that I've recently discovered, which has shown me this narrative consistency (I urge you to look at his previous few collections). His FW25 collection promised cutting proficiency, and cutting proficiency we get, from the latest collection, SS26, as well as in hindsight, SS25. One particular signature of his is that asymmetric 'swoosh' of garments.
The shawl from Look 5 and 15 of FW25, Look 6, 13 & 21 of SS25, and from the latest collection Look 25 & 22. Perhaps swoosh isn't the best descriptor, as the examples don't all show curves. A jut of fabrics, maybe? Swoosh, however, captures the garment’s activeness; it extends, it points, and it divides, and this activeness lags behind in more symmetrical ensembles. With the asymmetry and the ‘jut of garment’ that I find so joyful to look at, Campillo's intention to position his clothes as displayable art, as diligently as Jonathan Anderson's whimsical touch at Loewe, has caused this 'jut' to look like a marble sculpture. I would even argue that if it wasn't for the premise of his work, the surroundings in which he places his creations, this jut, this swoosh, this asymmetry, would not have had the same effect on me.
In SS26, Patricio Campillo took a sharp turn from overt formality into something rugged, with Trompe l'oeil pieces that resemble bamboo crafts, a hardened vest, and so on. However, it's never 'too refined' for Patricio, even when he explores rougher textures. But does it match? Recently I've been hearing more and more conversations about 'bringing back ugliness,' that is, the idea that the 'ugly' is human, it combats the uncanniness of everything being too tasteful and too perfect. While I am once again delighted to see Patricio's surprising application and manipulation of garments, as the 'jut of fabric' really showed more than just an artistic penchant but also Patricio's instinct to do something unexpected, this collection was flooded with it. Besides the occasional moments of fabric manipulation, this Spring/Summer collection has fallen into the category of clothes that are pragmatically pretty, a sour positive note. For a hot summer, minimal layering, of course, light fabrics, for sure, and on top of that, make sure to have enough details or funkiness to keep the consumers happy. This set of parameters, looking at clothes through the lens of ‘pragmatically pretty,’ is often something that I don't wish to use on designers who have shown me a higher level of clothmaking. When clothes remind me of numbers and sales, when I am trying to be stubbornly immersed in the aesthetic assessment only, it hinders the art in fashion that I wish to see, especially when it’s promised.
In the capitalistic world, the sellability of the clothes remains the most important for the majority; few have the luck to not care about this. But the point being made here is that the SS26 Campillo collection saw too obvious a gap between the incorporation of artsy motifs and the gen-pop-friendly silhouettes. He failed to properly link the Campillo sophistication, which is a bit of an acquired taste, to the surface-level perception of a bunch of sellable clothes. When a collection like this is presented, filled with clothes that, on one hand, disappointed me with the standard not matching what was promised, but on the other hand, the products are irrefutably Campillo, I can't call this a bad collection as I do not feel repulsed in any way, but the disparity of Campillo's associated level of artful fashion is mixing like oil and water with the ‘entry-levelness’ of it. The intention here is clear: a bridging collection, perhaps, is a better description - a pit stop, if you will.
Can't say I am the most excited about this, but my excitement can only mean so much.