The catwalk stunt is now the rule: we have seen it happening during the latest fashion weeks on Valentino's runway where the Zoolander actors closed the show and at Vivienne Westwood's catwalk show that ended with Boardwalk Empire’s Paz de la Huerta kissing a male model in a wedding dress and pinstripe trousers.
You could argue it all makes sense especially in our age in which social media and Instagram pages constantly update us about the latest fads, bizarre events and random appearances of attention-seeking celebrities.
Yet there are other fun ways to present a fashion collection, as proved by the catwalk show of designer Takafumi Tsuruta that took place during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Tokyo's Shibuya Hikarie. The show quickly ended up on the news, but not for the usual stunts or celebrities in the front row.
Tsuruta is indeed interested in creating clothes aimed at all people of the world, and he therefore decided to send out on his Tenbo brand runway a mix of disabled - including Paralympic athletes and models who are blind or wear prosthetic limbs or use a wheelchair - and able-bodied models who showcased his designs in an unconventional way.
Most models smiled and looked happy and the final result was pretty different from Aimee Mullins walking in specially designed hand-carved prosthetic legs on Alexander McQueen's for Givenchy runway at the end of the '90s, or from the actress with Down's Syndrome, the female models on wheelchairs and the male amputee model who recently walked the runways in New York during the FTL Moda's A/W 15 show.
At McQueen the old animate/inanimate dichotomy played indeed a major role, while the emphasis in the other cases was on reminding us that disability is first and foremost a state of mind. Tsuruta instead has actually designed some of his garments with disability in mind, following the aims and objectives of his previous label, Ha ha.
Some of his sweater coats close indeed with magnetic buttons that help the wearer dressing in an easier way, while dot prints calling to mind Braille reappeared on tights, ties, trapeze dresses and sweatshirts donned models in bright yellow wigs and nails and shiny glittery lipstick.
Happy skull motifs on shirts and dresses and elegant prints of origami cranes on white shirts added a fun element to the show that also included a few deconstructed pieces.
Tsuruta also recreated another wedding dress for a wheelchair-bound bride (he had done so two seasons ago at Ha ha) - disabled model Ami Sano. Yet the designer didn't opt for disabled models to create a sensational stunt, this was indeed a fresh way to approach new ideas of beauty, present clothes that may help people and challenge the fashion industry to create trendy clothes for everybody and not just for the able-bodied elite.
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