Josep Font, the creative director for Delpozo eschews the limelight. He has dressed celebrities but does not slavishly court them, and has been passed over for the major international fashion awards. Like Azzedine Alaia before him he dedicates himself to the work of designing, digging deep into his own well of creativity to create the sublime.
Spanish by birth Font follows in the tradition of that other great Spanish designer, Cristóbal Balenciaga. Both are known for inventing new ways to manipulate fabric, reducing the expression to its purist form.
Delpozo Pre Fall 2018
For Delpozo Pre Fall, Font found inspiration in the landscape photographs of Franco Fontana and the studio portraits of birds by Luke Stephenson. The Fontana photographs are orderly abstractions in saturated colors. I can see why they appealed to Font who is also drawn to sweeping gestures and unlikely color combinations. The study of exotic birds is felt in the element of fantasy, at once bold and delicate, in the clothes.
Font’s fearless and masterful use of color is always an element of his collections. In pre fall his host of bright colors include mint paired with deepest red, burgundy and canary yellow.
The collection includes wool crepe, heavy enough to hold the shapes created by Font’s intricate seaming. He inlays stripes of bold colors and manipulates them creating geometric forms through seams and pleats to great effect. His skill in manipulating heavy fabrics into forms is matched by his delicate hand applied to the tulle creations. My favorite dress molds wool crepe into a structured bodice with a gathered tulle skirt spilling out below (first photo). Font is able to mask the technical expertise of his creations with a light touch, preserving the dreamlike quality of his work. We are fortunate to have Josep Font as the Balenciaga of our time.
