Jonathan Anderson’s first collection with Converse, a three-part collaborative effort, has been a study in contrasts — always toying with the tension between the fringes of youth fashion and the ubiquity of Converse icons. The first, Glitter_Gutter, pushed the egalitarian Chuck 70 into a new provocative space. Following, Anderson’s Simply_Complex employed suede and denim to give simple silhouettes a sophisticated statement.

If the first two parts of the collection introduce Anderson’s stance on Converse, the third, New_Classics, epitomizes Anderson’s daring curiosity. Here, Anderson again draws inspiration from the vintage ballet slipper (the genesis of the Chuck 70 U-Throat), re-interpreting its elements with a modern juxtaposition of natural materials and a technical build. “The vintage ballerina that inspired the shoe was actually more of a sport slipper in mesh. I liked the functionality and lightness of that shoe, and we decided to adopt some details to reinterpret the icon,” he says.

The collection launches April 4 on converse.com and j-w-anderson.com, it will also be carried at JW Anderson stores and select retailers globally. The Chuck 70 XX Hi in Turtle Green (shown below) is available exclusively through JW Anderson Workshops and jw-anderson.com.

In addition to the collection, a limited-edition print publication featuring Larry Clark’s work from all three parts of the Converse x JW Anderson collection will be available at select Converse stores and JW Anderson Workshops.

Yesterday Sven-Harry’s art museum was housing ten unique couture pieces conceived by ten second-year fashion designer students from Beckmans College of Design under the guidance of their director and prominent Swedish designer Pär Engsheden. 'Black Couture' was expected to be a fashion show but happened to be a peculiar experience. The museum space had all of a sudden turned into a vivid theatre scene, where models, wearing entirely black couture pieces, were literally performing, instead of traditionally walking on a catwalk.

The audience was generously invited to participate in the performance by experiencing the craftsmanship of couture, while observing the playfulness of homogeneous black textures, silhouettes and forms the performing models were theatrically demonstrating.

The performance started in the basement and continued on the top floor, taking the audience step by step through different forms and cuts of the couture science. There was a sincere moment of co-creation between the audience and fashion, where the authenticity of couture were dancing tango with the identity of the young designers making the beholders’ imagination frequently search for references. Some associations I had were Les Ballets Suédois and Joséphine Baker, ‘The Matrix’ (1999), ‘Blade Runner’ (1982) with its neo-noir science fiction, Martin Margiela, Renaissance, an element of Orientalism with a rebellious twist and Gothic rock. The performance has definitely become a 'hancrafted' experience manifesting that black has a lot of shades and shapes.