Couture Fruits and Fruit Flies at AREA

Sure enough, upon entering the show, artificial fruit flies were scattered all over the walls and ceiling. And the first look wasted no time either: a top, necklace, and skirt made of 3D bananas out of ombre velvet and finished the with sculpted 24K gold cap tips.

Related | AREA Goes Punk Fetish for Its Return to the Runway

Other looks included couture watermelon dresses cut into slices, silk jersey pleated into flat banana panels and connected by gold faceted caps, plunging halter dresses made from yellow crystal banana beading with decaying brown spots and crystal grape vine collars.

The fruit flies were also turned into couture jewelry (some were placed on models' lips) and as embellishments on a sculptural black wool silk tuxedo. So why all the big fruit themes?

"We started exploring the beauty of fruits and their symbolic meaning in arts and pop culture and looked at the different stages fruit is represented in mediums such as painting, sculpture, dance, and performance," creative director Piotrek Panszczyk said in the show notes.

When looking at the different stages of fruits (abundance, fertility, vitality and youth when fresh; mortality and the cycle of life when decayed), he interpreted these concepts through various embroideries, embellishment techniques, metalworks, and construction through motifs of grapes, bananas, and watermelon.

See more photos from AREA's Spring 2023 show in the gallery, below.

Photos courtesy of AREA