There’s a dearth of tasteful intermingling between motor racing and fashion design. Albert Kriemler, designer of the Swiss couture house Akris, is looking to change that. His latest spring/summer collection is all about Formula One—specifically, about John Frankenheimer’s 1966 movie Grand Prix.
The problem with using motor racing imagery in fashion is that it’s very easy to go overboard and slather everything in Gulf colors, checkered flags and Ferrari red. Which is a shame, because the shapes, colors and history of motor racing would make for some fabulous designs (I must note here a personal obsession about one day commissioning a length of Harris Tweed based on the seat fabric of Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1955 Mercedes-Benz W196).
Albert Kriemler’s approach was to take elements of Grand Prix and either abstract them away—turning race cars into stripes or using nothing but the yellow and green of a period Lotus—or use glamorous color prints like the one you can see on the dress above, which shows a lady smoking a cigeratte on the balcony of the Hôtel Hermitage with a view of, if I’m not mistaken, Massenet corner of the Circuit de Monaco.
Yeah yeah yeah, it’s nothing but precious Euro clothes with price tags to drain one’s brain of all blood, but isn’t it nice to see car culture creep into high fashion? You can see Kriemler’s full collection on Vogue UK’s website.
Hat tip to Zsanett Hegedűs.