By Michael Haneke The piano teacherIsabelle Huppert stars as Erika Kohut, an unbalanced piano teacher who enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with one of her students. The psychosexual drama is a powerful and often disturbing portrait of a complex woman who appears simple and unremarkable at first glance, but contains fire within. It’s the way Huppert portrays both coy restraint and how she powerfully – and sometimes maniacally – unleashes Erika’s inner chaos that inspired Liushu Lei (ShuShu) and Yutong Jiang (TongTong) this season.
The push and pull between desire and rejection, the tension between feeling wanted and finding power in refusal, is what ShuShu and TongTong wanted to dramatize. The result was a somewhat familiar brand of ‘ugly’ sophistication (it’s not the first time Ms. Prada’s unique language has been evoked this season, in Shanghai and around the world), but here it helped the designers create a revealing a compelling new layer to ShuShu. / Tongue. While in the past the designers’ precise vision of beauty and elegance felt primitive and specific, this season was more vibrant.
Instead of their usual chocolate browns and other deep shades, there were vibrant mints, pearly pinks, bright blue ginghams and a vibrant wine red. Instead of satin and heavy silks, they offered chiffons, georgettes and rayons and what looked like a lace cotton voile. It all felt light and rather weightless, with a hint of structure from wool suits and twill worked into elegant casings and knits.
The sensuality of the collection came from intricate, unconventional cuts and design elements. Cardigans were cropped short and often shaped like boleros. They were hybridized or had ruffled georgette sleeves, showing just enough of the collarbone or midriff to feel attractive but not redundant. Skirts revealed a peekaboo inset of lace at the level of the thighs, but only when models walked and the skin met the underlay of their clothes. Classic ShuShu/Tong bows on A-line skirts were loosened and undone to trail behind each model, and pencil skirts were shown doubled up, with the top layer loosened and undone.
ShuShu/Tong can often feel girly, but this season the word was female. If the goal was to portray a woman’s inner world and the complexities of adulthood, they succeeded with aplomb.