Commenting upon issues such as society or politics in fashion can be extremely tricky: fashion is a commercial venture after all and rarely designers are allowed to make their points in such matters especially when they are part of big and powerful groups and conglomerates. Yet there are ways to cleverly comment and prompt people to think a bit about what's going on in the world. An example? Comme des Garçons' all red Spring/Summer 2015 collection.
While pointing towards "roses and blood", the keywords of the show, the designs hinted at deeper meanings as if Rei Kawakubo was using a metonymy to reference the current state of the world.
Fashion weeks unravel for over one month in the major world capitals, they are a sort of movable feast of global proportions, but the truth is that there is more horror than glamour on our sad and messed up planet. The list is long from the ebola outbreak in West Africa to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the curse of terrorism and the recent events in Hong Kong with pro-democracy protestors being confronted by riot police.
The red colour and the fractured, soft or deconstructed and reassembled shapes and silhouettes Kawakubo sent out on Comme des Garçons' runway pointed towards an entire gamut of emotions.
The red roses that opened the show referenced a strong passion and the throes of love, but soon the roses unwrapped turning into red ribbons and leather tongues, almost like a shredded skin peeled off the human body, revealing pulsing muscles underneath. Soft tubes called to mind human organs; white appeared for a brief time though it looked splattered with blood. Mixes of materials - thick and thin, layered and puffed up, ruffled and blown up, twisted and flattened, shiny and matte, padded and sculptural - created tactile dichotomies.
Mysterious Little Red Riding Hood characters also appeared on the runway wearing oversized plastic transparent, red and black (the Grim Reaper?) hoods that gave an even more ominously sinister touch to the collection. These figure actually called to mind scary red riding hood-like characters like the young girl/assassin dwarf in the 1973 thriller-horror film Don't Look Now directed by Nicolas Roeg that actually revolved around psychological pain generating horrific visions.
Horror is in a way part of this collection: Japan has a tradition of tales of mystery and horror with spirits such as the Oni, gigantic creatures with sharp claws that devour humans, the Yuki-Omna, a doomed snow woman, the Rokurokubi or neck-stretching creatures, and the Nukekubi, monsters with detachable heads. Who knows, maybe they were on Kawakubo's mind or maybe she was simply trying to provoke some cathartic mental pain by making us think about the blood-soaked period of history we're living in.
In the classic world Greek tragedies were supposed to purify the audience throughout a cathartic process and while it may be a bit hard to ask fashion to provide a catharsis for the entire world (fashion is first and foremost about money and Comme des Garçons has also got a "Red" perfume and a series of 5 fragrances made with red flowers, woods, fruits and spices...), maybe the idea behind this collection suspended between horror and beauty was to push people to ponder about our society and world and remember all the innocent civilians killed in the name of religion, justice, nationalism or political affiliation.
Maybe contemporary fashion has got some real (social) power (apart from financial power) but we need more fearless designers to make sure it is projected on the runway and arrives in the shops carrying its core message to us, ordinary consumers.
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