Education-wise there is currently one trend that has damaged young people (and grown ups as well...) - the lack of a proper knowledge in subjects such as history/history of art. Historical dates and key events or art movements are all jumbled up in the minds of many young people who often wonder what's the point of learning by heart something when you can check a date or a poem online any moment and prove you have more or less the same knowledge (though in your case it's a sort of temporary knowledge...) of somebody with three degrees.
The damages caused by the lack of historical knowledge are clear also in the fashion industry: a relatively young critic may see something on a runway and enthuse about the genius behind it without realising that same design already existed fifty years ago.
Take for example the catwalk show organised by Diesel in Venice at the beginning of April to celebrate the first anniversary of Nicola Formichetti's appointment as Artistic Director of the brand.
The event was definitely conceived as a media stunt in which the clothes were secondary. Most of the reviews may have been entitled 'Oh Hey If Renzo Rosso Pays...' as they mentioned set and setting, celebrity attendance, models, parties, luxury hotels and water taxis in Venice – with maybe 40-80 words dedicated to the garments (none of such words highlighting any kind of innovative research into functionality or the use of slogan patches on garments but the lack of any kind of political intent in the same patches).
The show finale featuring rows of models in balaclavas and oversized fur pompoms or bunny ears actually seemed borrowed from Walter van Beirendonck. The Belgian designer sent masked figures on his runway already for his A/W 1989-90 collection, but the Diesel show seemed to have more of a connection with Walter van Beirendonck's A/W 1995-96 show for his W.&L.T (Wild & Lethal Trash) label.
You could argue that Diesel's balaclavas were about the Pussy Riot and a classic "I am Spartacus" moment, while Van Beirendonck's collection was more about developments in technology, sexual and fashion fetishism, the power of masks, Euro-trash club-culture hedonism, and models looking like aliens from outer space, but the final feeling seemed the same, considering also how Formichetti claimed on Style.com he is acting as a connector for a new species - the "indigo children" - suspended between the digital and the physical world and proliferating through Tumblr.
Young fashion fans may fall for it, but older fashion commentators are probably laughing at the very concept of the umpteenth new species of people (consumers) finally being spotted on our sad planet by the fashion industry and at how brands nowadays appropriate a cause and an image (the Pussy Riot) and turn it into the same thing that specific cause is rebelling against.
Who knows, maybe one day things in fashion will start moving again and we will find some genuine innovation and fun, but, for the immediate future, we'll probably keep on being trapped in a continuous déjà vu that we approve, love and appreciate also thanks to our collective historical ignorance. If fashion can genuinely be used as a way to define a cultural climate, then it is hinting at a lazy culture too busy on re-vomiting and regurgitating itself to actually go forward and finally produce something genuinely innovative.
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