For resort, Area’s Piotrek Panszczyk was thinking about “the mundane, the basics you really need in a wardrobe.” “We wanted to play with simplicity in a way we hadn’t really done for a while,” he said on a Zoom fresh from Milan where he’s recently begun
doing Area’s production. Only for Panszczyk could “simplicity” mean a collection full of polka dots inspired by Pop Art and Roy Lichtenstein—though he and his team really experimented with different treatments and fabrics.
Easy bustiers and relaxed motorcycle jackets were made out of a tech gabardine, with “heat-affixed” polka dots that added interest in the way of texture, especially in butter yellow. (The lookbook is presented in stark black and white, but along with the popular shade of yellow, the collection also includes a brilliant shade of red.) In jersey, an easy boxy shift dress with a deep rounded rectangular back cutout is one of the pieces that best embodies the “back to basics” approach Panszczyk was after this season.
Some of the standout pieces in the collection indulged in a bit of maximalism, like a series of spaghetti strap tops, miniskirts, and minidresses made from leather with star-shaped insets and decorated with hand-embroidered asymmetrically placed cabochons; or the black and white polka dot-and-star print tweed which looked especially great as a strapless column dress with a matching bolero jacket, both embellished with oversized gold and diamanté buttons. “Because we’re see now/buy now, we’ve seen that this is something people are really gravitating towards, something they’re really buying into,” the designer explained. “They love this kind of graphicness; it’s still referential but it also feels a bit more modern.”