Bode Takes a Sentimental Journey Into Womenswear

Emily Adams Bode Aujla keeps her menswear tender while launching womenswear for thoughtful, intentional, and clever women like herself.

There are a million different ways to make noise in fashion. Cast celebrities on the catwalk. Dress models as fluffy stuffed animals. Turn the volume of oomph-oomph dance music to 11. At Bode’s Fall/Winter 2023 show at Paris Fashion Week men’s the noise was much subtler than all that hoo-ha. On Saturday evening, the stage of the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet was covered in a fine ivory gravel, the type you find at sleepy seaside towns, and as models walked around the set, their small slippers and slender loafers made a crunch-crunch sound. Close your eyes as the models sauntered by and the sound memory alone could take you back on holiday with family in New England. A lobster roast felt close at hand. A softball game starting up down the road.

Emily Adams Bode Aujla’s most impressive skill as a creative director is that she can pull you out of now and place you gently into then with her work. This collection, the official debut of her womenswear line, was imagined as a deeply sentimental ode to her mother and her mother’s three sisters. The set itself was a meticulous replica of The Crane Estate, a Massachusetts home where Bode Aujla’s mother Janet Rice worked in the 1970s, designed by Bode Aujla’s husband Aaron and his partner in Green River Project , Ben Bloomstein. Three of the Rice sisters were present in Paris to greet Bode Aujla backstage after the show; her aunt Nancy died in October, but her uncle Frank surprised Bode Aujla at the show, giving a moving speech about family and love before the presentation started. (Several guests admitted to crying during the show’s first act.)It’s this humanity that makes the Bode magic so appealing to the jaded fashion set and beyond. With her hand-embroidered shirts, fringed trousers, and nostalgic T-shirts, she creates not just a feast for the eyes, but also one for the heart with her collections. Downstairs below the stage were mood boards with hundreds of photos of Bode Aujla’s mother, each garment an homage to something from her mother’s closet or life. “There are very specific things that are entirely historically replicated,” Bode Aujla says after the show. “But I also took details of my mom’s tank tops and then utilized that detail in another shirt, for example.” Each stitch of the collection can be unpicked for family lore. Maybe you care that the exquisite beaded dance dresses are inspired by the 1920s styles the designer herself wears, but even if you don’t, the collection can stand on its own. Underneath the prettiness is a pragmatism about dressing a woman from day to night—emphasis on night. “I didn't want to launch womenswear and not be able to dress women for evening,” says Bode Aujla. “That was almost—not the impetus to launch womenswear, but I can only dress women in suits for evening, right? Or maybe extended shirts with fringe? It can be awesome, but it just wasn't how I would dress a woman for evening all the time.” Now, sequin column dresses in grass green are coupled with stately, military-inspired coat dresses. Models’ high hair bows evoke the designer’s own hairstyles after 6 PM.“Aaron was taking pictures of some of the looks before and said it looks just like me in college,” Bode Aujla laughs. “Some pieces, of course, are iterations of some of my favorite things, things I wish I had, or things I wish I could find.” Others were wear-tested earlier this year. “The Christmas tree dress I wore to our holiday party this year,” she says. “The idea is that it’s on the edge of costume clothing, but because of the way that it is made, it’s luxury.”The appeal was almost instant. After the show, guests traded orders for their must-have knits and trousers while Usher greeted Bode Aujla. The clamor around her event, her collection, and the Bode way is the latest in a recurring theme in Paris this week: that independent designers don’t need heritage brands to mark their own heritage. Grace Wales Bonner opened the week with her dual gendered collection and Bode almost closed it, stitching the threads of history with her own passion. Who needs someone else’s heritage when you can make the best with your own?