While Charles Jeffrey was spreading youth power and dancing in the face of fear and threats during the menswear shows in London, on Vivienne Westwood's menswear runway (combining her former Red Label women's wear and her Man line) there was an acrobatic moveable feast.
Rappers sang about the state of politics in the UK, but didn't do so from a stage but from a children's playpen mounted at the bottom of the runway.
Then circus performers – among them a ballerina, clownish characters and twins – cavorted and jumped around in classic Westwood designs.
The offer included pinstriped suits and corseted gowns; damasked garments covered in primitive art that may have come from a cave; practical dresses and slogan patterned shirts and aprons; an assortment of garments that looked reassembled and patched with off cuts of assorted fabrics, and khaki ribbed knit dresses printed with Japanese letters that looked as if they were cut out of cheap hemp.
The key print for the next season featured a deck of playing cards in which the club was revolutionised to hint at sexual penetration (an illustration accompanied by the slogan "Motherf*cker").
Tops with numbers hinted at the damages made by global greed; the trash – crushed cans and plastic bottles, but also discarded pieces of plastic and paper – trapped in the fishnet stockings called to mind floating islands of trash in the oceans, reminding us of climate change and the rainforest under threat.
Apocalypse was around the corner and one shirt was scribbled with a slogan – "Buy Less" – that suggested consumers to buy better and fewer things and possibly make them last.
Yet, in all this political correctness and energetic activism, there was a terrible faux pas: in her frenzy to recycle, Westwood sent out on the runway flattened plastic bottles re-purposed as sandals. This was supposed to be an encouragement to recycle, but once you paired them with slashed sleeves and ragged patched up trousers, you seriously wondered if Westwood had slipped and fell in the realm of the dreaded poverty chic trend.
It is indeed pretty easy to go on the Internet and stumble upon pictures of plastic water bottles re-purposed as slippers by people in poor countries (well, you will also find pictures of people in wealthy countries showing how to do plastic bottle slippers in a shoe emergency…). So, while the original idea behind the shoes (recycling everyday materials) was probably honourable, the way it was executed on the runway was maybe less convincing and verged towards taking the piss out of poor countries.
Things were rebalanced by the art print of choice – Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" – replicated on trousers, shirts and dresses.
This painting hides an allegory that goes well with the final meaning of the collection: in Bruegel's work Carnival is represented by a large man riding a beer barrel pushed by a man dressed in yellow and representing deceit; Lady Lent is instead pictured in religious attire, on a cart pushed by a friar and a nun.
Behind them the background represents scenes inspired by the debauchery of Carnival and the austerity of Lent, from people drinking in an inn to people helping the poor. The painting becomes therefore a great way to depict contrasts between two sides of contemporary life.
The focus of the scene remains the central couple that gives the back to the viewer: a man carrying a strange bulge under his clothes, maybe representing Egotism (usually pictured as carrying a sack on his back), and a woman with an unlit lantern hanging by her belt. The man and the woman are led by a fool and critics usually explain that the couple is a symbol for the common masses who have lost reason and they are therefore following folly.
In a way this sounds like a great metaphor for fashion: Carnival and Lent could be interpreted as luxury and poverty or wasting and recycling. Besides, the runway could be seen as an endless Carnival with critics and consumers blinded by its glamour and lies. Yet, while the painting worked very well, the plastic bottle shoes may have been avoided. In fact, since Westwood wants to encourage people to buy less, in future she may try and come up with shorter and better edited collections, after all the key to buying less is producing fewer and better pieces.
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