Andreas Kronthaler debuted his Autumn/Winter 2024 collection “The Tailor” for Vivienne Westwood at Paris Fashion Week. The essence of the collection, rooted in Kronthaler’s personal experiences with Vivienne Westwood herself, is about the desire to feel good in fashion. Taking inspiration from their shared passion for history, late Renaissance costumes, and a recent viewing of a Giovanni Battista Moroni exhibition in Milan, Italy, Kronthaler aimed to emulate his early days working with Westwood. By taking the austerity and elegance of Mornoni’s images and historical patterns from Patterns of Fashion by Janet Arnold and mixing them with sports protection gear, suddenly Kronthaler’s “The Tailor” was born. 

The collection also served as an ode to the past and nostalgia of Vivienne Westwood herself. Through references to 1600s codpieces through sportswear to the slashing and piercing of materials, pluderhosen, breeches, and doublets in reminiscence of the Westwood signature styles and iconography. Black, too, is a key component of the collection, as both a popular color of the Renaissance and Vivienne Westwood’s punk roots. The color’s connotations of elegance also add to the ethos of the collection; elegance is not just what you wear, but how you wear it.

In the collection’s focus on desire and personal feeling, elegance becomes a reflection of the inner self and an important reminder of life before our own.