It is not a secret that designer Thomas Tait is a fan of Dario Argento's films: the designer used indeed as the background music of some of his previous runway shows remixed bits and pieces of Goblin's soundtracks for Argento's Suspiria and Tenebre.
For his new collection Tait went further: though, he didn't borrow from Pierangelo Cicoletti's costumes for Suspiria, he reused the film palette with those deep electric blues and bright reds, occasionally punctuated by barricade tape yellow and black.
Tait then went as far as inserting pleated panels with prints of screenshots taken from Suspiria (that he captured from his laptop while watching films in bed) in his shift dresses and silk scarves. The idea was featuring low quality images of scenes he had selected on complicated designs: screens from the very beginning of the film with Jessica Harper as Suzy Bannion in the taxi heading to the dance school, from the first horrible murder in a building with a rather disturbing white and red geometric décor were therefore sampled on several asymmetric black dresses and tops.
Argento's saturated colours came back in a luxurious blood red knit column with an elegant funnel neck (a piece that evoked a garment donned by a woman exiting the airport at the very beginning of the film), a design included in the collection in a different colour as well - mustard yellow. Tait employed this shade also for a very architectural coat with a skirt of pleats.
There were further horror references: long black latex gloves were matched with the pleated pieces, calling to mind the favourite accessories of murderers, while the shoes incorporated a crystal ball in the heel almost to remind us of the witches' paranormal activities in Suspiria.
The tuft of red fur hiding in the armpit of a short A-line coat hinted instead at blood and horror while introducing another part of the collection, more focused on sculptural leather skirts, tailored jackets at times embellished with modernist hand-blown glass elements or T logo brooches, and austere leather/patent coats with pointed collars and oversized ring-pull zips that added a retro minimal flavour to the collection.
Argento's Suspiria was a story suspended between the conservative and the supernatural with its rigid ballet school governed by evil witches; Tait's main aim, as the designer stated, was coming up with a dichotomic collection infused with both parochial and supernatural elements, moods that he finds also in the disquieting work of one of his favourite photographers, Gregory Crewdson.
Tait actually defined the collection "sci-fi spaghetti western" and, while you can see the western reference in the leather pieces and in particular in the skirt with the T brooch worn like a sheriff's badge at the hip (shame there were no hints at Les Pétroleuses in the collection) it should have maybe been called "horror spaghetti western". Also the place where the collection was showcased had indeed something horrific about it: the industrial space was immersed in the dark, with models walking in near darkness and following rectangles of light, a way to prompt viewers to genuinely focus on the designs, and for Tait to slow the fast moods of his previous presentations and the relentless rhythms of fashion.
You could argue Tait is definitely commercially astute since, as seen in multiple previous posts, horror, death and the demise of a beautiful woman (a theme that points at society's obsession with the female body) always sell in fashion (and Argento had close links with the fashion industry having directed the A/W 1986-87 Trussardi fashion show in which he borrowed moods and scenes from Suspiria).
Yet, while the collection will surely be a hit among Dario Argento fans (you can almost see his daughter Asia becoming a firm supporter of the designer...), all these specific references make you think a lot when compared to other designs inspired by Suspiria.
For example, also Nicolas Ghesquière referenced in his S/S 15 collection for Louis Vuitton Dario Argento's Suspiria and Tenebre (see the wallpaper print velvet dresses and the yellow and black striped dress with red tongues for fastenings View this photo) and his official Instagram page is peppered here and there with Suspiria screenshots.
Tait won last year's inaugural LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize, receiving funds that helped him stabilising the financial side of his brand and receiving mentoring from the company.
Now you wonder if, apart from introducing designers to further factories in Europe capable of manufacturing better pieces with more intricate and complex fabrication processes, the LVMH group also suggests them which horror movies to watch or if they also mentor designers on how to find ideas and infringe copyrights (some of the images included in Tait's collection were marked with a graphic writing that read "Goblin", so Tait should have paid both Argento and Goblin...).
It would be worthwhile investigating how much designers borrow from each other nowadays or which consultants suggest and advice them on how to sample ideas, screens and images from certain key cult films. At the moment I'm seriously starting to think that consumers are indeed not the only fashion victims and that the fashion industry can truly kill one's creativity and originality.
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