In his S/S 17 collection for Moschino Jeremy Scott took inspiration from paper dolls. Humble paper continued to provide him with ideas for the next season as well, as showed on today's runway during Milan Fashion Week.
The opening pieces – coats, jackets, mini-skirts, tops and skirt suits – were inspired by brown cardboard and they were at times made to look as if held together with parcel tape or made with crumpled paper bags.
Some of the pieces were decorated with shipping labels spelling "Fragile" and "Handle with care" that reminded the audience how we collectively rely from couriers parcels.
Scott's interpretation of carboard couture took another (less convincing) turn in the looks that followed: '50s dresses, casual jackets, tops, bustiers and skirts matched with thigh-high boots were covered in print collages made from old Moschino editorials stolen and literally ripped from the pages of Vogue.
This trick was a sort of return to Franco Moschino's attitude to literally take the piss out of himself and the fashion industry, but some of the bright nuances and the technique of collaging together ripped and torn pages called to mind Mimmo Rotella's layered and torn film and advert posters assembled with his décollage technique.
The trick tended to become a bit tiring, though, after two or three models sported it, but it was uplifted by George Michael's "Too Funky" on the soundtrack, a sort of ode to madness on the runway.
The collection closed with Haute (Trash) Couture: gowns made with a pile of rubbish, refashioned from a shower curtain or a rug or layered under a dry cleaning bag; crystals mimicked bubble wrap; toy rats were used to create a stole; a bag was shaped like a trash bin, a toilet roll was reinvented as a handbag and a single sock served as a purse.
Through his fashionable puns Scott was trying to hint at consumption and recycling in a fun way.
And while he is responsible for pollution as much as everybody else, when it comes to recyling he is actually a master. Yes, recycling from other collections.
Despite his goodwill at trying to find new ideas, one of his model sported a wheel on her head and a dress made with bin bags, elements reminiscent of Alexander McQueen's Autumn/Winter 2009-10 collection. The dress made of found watches called instead to mind the dresses and bras made with Swatch watches seen in 2003 at the "Swatch Skin" event in Seoul South Korea.
But, if these were mere coincidences, others were more or less rip-offs: indeed Scott came up with a Surrealist gown made of gloves matched with a purse made with one glove that echoed Margiela's purse for H&M and the Belgian designer's iconic waistcoats made of vintage gloves.
Besides, among the accessories there was also a reinvention of the iconic magazine clutch from the '80s.
The irony of this collection was supposed to be on people spending and splashing and on the fact that real attitude is not in how much you spend on something, but in how you wear it, may it be a bin bag used as a dress or an empty toilet paper roll turned into a fancy bangle. So, the final message was rather positive, encouraging people to make something by themselves or reinvent it in a cheap material when you can't afford to buy original.
Yet said by Scott, a designer well-versed in copyright infringement, the message sounded like a lie. Besides, even though the collection was less ridiculous than some of the previous ones for Moschino and even managed to be more relevant to the times we are living in, it still echoed previous designs and could have been summarised with the subtitle of McQueen's A/W 2009 collection - "Everything And The Kitchen Sink".
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