Details
Titled Dispossessed, Carol Christian Poell’s Spring/Summer 2005 women’s collection was a meditation on impermanence, displacement, and the fragility of shelter. Often referred to by collectors as the “SAFE” collection—after the word stamped across select leather pieces—it framed clothing as both protection and burden. Instead of a traditional runway show, Poell presented the collection through a hand-bound overlock-stitched lookbook and private showroom appointments.
The garments felt unearthed rather than designed: translucent shirts that clung like wet skin, coats with exaggerated overlock seams, and accessories that recalled found objects. The silhouettes leaned more classic than previous seasons—structured coats, shirt-dresses, tailored trousers—but were rendered unstable by raw finishing, stretched leathers, and stiff paper-like fabrics. Poell used traditional forms not to comfort, but to haunt.
Central to the collection was its use of unconventional materials: white laminated textiles resembling packaging paper, vegetable-tanned leathers, and object-dyed cottons. Shoes appeared without soles. Shirts looked rain-soaked. Belts flexed unnaturally due to bonded stretch leather. Each piece was treated to appear worn, repaired, or hastily reassembled—fragments of a wardrobe left behind or carried from place to place. The collection didn’t offer styling options. It offered survival strategies.
Technical Specifications
Presented in Milan through showroom installation, 2004
Concept title: Dispossessed
Format: No runway show; overlock-stitched photographic lookbook
Materials: Laminated cotton, vegetable-tanned leather, object-dyed fabrics, hand-blown glass (accessories)
Construction techniques: Exposed overlock seams, garment dyeing, acid treatment, bonded stretch leather
Network
Carol Christian Poell, Stefan Ziesler, Bonotto
Courtesy
Carol Christian Poell Archive
Lift Tokyo Exhibition
