For its FW 23 collection, Les Benjamins looks beyond what we know of earth and imagines a post-apocalyptic world and what the first colony might look like in a desert landscape. It is in this environment where Creative Director Bunyamin Aydin’s designs transform, becoming abstract and aesthetically distant.
Under the moniker the First Wave, the collection combines several of the brand’s aesthetic pillars, including futuristic sci-fi elements, as well a number of gaming skins with the brand’s staple Eastern cultural symbols. “First Wave is an amalgamation of a future where the nostalgia for earth still lingers on, long after its inhabitants have left,” the brand said in a statement.
Designed to protect, the garments in the collection are made to brave extreme elements. This second skin, a type of body armour, padding and technical military silhouettes are crafted from leather, silk, and crepe, and are juxtaposed with hardware and functional tech details. Each piece is adorned with tubes, patches, and drawstring elements which appear on rave-style silhouettes. The chain detailing that seems to wrap around blazers and collared tops give a contemporary, modern edge to Les Benjamin’s formalwear.
The nostalgic collection aligns with the brand’s commitment to community and imagines a new desert tribe emerging, where members still have a nostalgia for the old times, and the East in particular, as they resiliently look towards the future.
The colour palette of this latest Les Benjamins collection, echoing the melancholy of the set and mood, runs across both men’s and womenswear. Shades of mahogany, sylvan green, and swamp paired with flashes of abstract neon, and acid washes, bring a cyberpunk tone to a collection that is largely a gentle symbol of humanistic hope. a hope set against a dystopian backdrop.
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