ZARA ICONS considers one foundational garment every season: a paradigm piece that lives in every woman’s wardrobe. For SS’24, that starting point was the shirt.
ZARA ICONS design studio has shaped five diverse manifestations of this garment. Each manifestation of the shirt was shaped to the highest standards by the in-house savoir-faire and fabrication to express a different facet of worn emotion and style.
This collection of five shirts, combined with the individuality of the women who might choose to wear them, possesses an almost infinite potential to generate emotional impressions.
To showcase this core Zara creative project this season, the design team has worked with the famed photographer Annie Liebovitz, one of the top portrait photographers in the world.
ZARA ICONS challenges the finest creative minds and is a collection of variations from the standard. Each garment represents a radically different and stimulating composition.
The Daydreaming Shirt has a collar, cuffs, and patterned placket that frame the conventional outline of a shirt. Yet the sheer material, embroidery and embellishment crafted upon it elevate it. Inspired by vintage illustrations and tattoos, these designs are a dreamy collage of universally evocative symbols drawn from fairytales and fantasy.
The combination of trompe l’oeil materiality and imagery drawn in thread, bead, and crystal creates a garment that is also the canvas of an attitude – curious, adventurous, intuitive, and self-possessed.
More than the sum of its parts, The Verlaine Shirt reflects a romantic soul. A waistcoat of organza patterned with embroidery at the front and spots at the back is layered over a full-sleeved and extravagantly cuffed silk vest with faintly masculine striping drawn from formal shirtmaking tradition.
It is finished with bird-symbol, thread-clad menswear buttons. The final flourish is the triple tier of tightly assembled ruffles at the bottom hem of the organza’s outer layer.
Inspired by rodeo style, the jewelled Performer Shirt was built to command the stage. Its body is cut in pale blue cotton poplin, layered with elaborately shaped patches in more camel-coloured poplin. These patches are the canvas for an expertly applied kaleidoscope of crystal and stone.
Slightly built up at the shoulder to emphasise strength, the shirt is presented without sleeves. It is almost entirely open at the back, thanks to a cutout edged around the shoulder blades that comes with an edging of dramatic fringe.
Cut in flowing but substantial black gazar, The Manageress Shirt is an innovative hybrid that incorporates elements of a classic menswear-tailored jacket. These elements are the horsehair wadding at the shoulder, the working cuffs on the sleeve, and the patch pockets at each hip. Contrasted against these are fundamental motifs of the shirt; a classic shirt collar, top pocket and buttoned placket combined in a generously cut garment designed to be shaped and fitted against the body with an included leather belt.
The result is a piece that is immediately familiar yet strikingly unusual. It can be worn as eveningwear, workwear, or other clothing.
Exploding the base assumption of what makes a shirt a shirt, The Balloon Shirt pulls that foundational garment apart to evolve a radically fresh paragon influenced by midcentury couture. It is crafted in a moire taffeta in a pale, grey-tinged blue.
At the shoulder and chest, this shirt’s emphasis starts with a collared neckline that runs from below the shoulder to below the hip in an artfully gathered bubble shape. Similarly, each balloon-shaped cuffed sleeve begins its descent to the wrist not from the shoulder but from mid-way around the tricep.
ZARA ICONS will be available online and in selected stores worldwide starting the 16th of September.
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