As soon as the news about David Bowie's death were confirmed, music fans took to the social networks to post their tributes. At the moment the London Collections Men shows are still on (closing today), but you can bet we will see more homages on the next men and womenswear runways. In the meantime, let's take a look at some previous posts that analysed Bowie's influence on some fashion designers.
The iconic and chameleonic artist actually appeared on quite a few menswear runways in the last few years: at times designers such as Walter Van Beirendonck displayed a fascination with his Ziggy Stardust incarnation as photographed by Duffy for the album cover of "Aladdin Sane" or with the graphic power of his stylistic choices (remember Riccardo Tisci's striped jacket for Givenchy's A/W 2010 collection, borrowed from a design donned by David Bowie in a picture with Mick Ronson taken in 1973? View this photo).
At others their explored themes like ambiguity and duplicity as portrayed in Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) in which Bowie played the role of Thomas Jerome Newton, an orange-haired androgynous alien, or vampire charm as evoked in Tony Scott's first directorial debut The Hunger (1983), starring Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie as Miriam and John Blaylock.
One of the main inspirations for Dior's Haute Couture collection by Raf Simons (see the title of the collection, but also the body-con knitted jumpsuits with graphic motifs View this photo that were maybe relics of a time when Ziggy Stardust favoured Kansai Yamamoto), the musician also influenced the style of the lookbook of Undercover's Autumn/Winter 2015/16 menswear collection in which a model assumed a series of poses reminiscent of Bowie's on the cover of "Heroes", while the current genderless trend is something Bowie was very familiar with as he played with a confusingly irresistible sexuality that turned him into an icon of style (or maybe he always was an icon of style - check out the picture taken in 1965 by Fiona Adams for Fabulous 208 showing a young David Bowie wearing John Stephen on a modeling assignment with Jan De Souza dressed in Courrèges in Kingly Street).
In 2013 the Victoria & Albert Museum dedicated to Bowie a major retrospective that analysed in depth this complex and enigmatic figure, from the early days of his career to his more recent adventures.
The event featured some of his most famous costumes (including the Alexander McQueen Union Jack coat he donned on the cover of his "Earthling" album) the singer inhabited to perennially reinvent himself and impersonate his best characters, from Ziggy Stardust and Major Tom to the Thin White Duke, and so on.
Always one step ahead of the trend, Bowie remains a legend and a very relevant icon for a fashion industry in disarray and in desperate need for someone with the timeless transformative powers he had.
Four days ago, Bowie's official YouTube channel released the video to a song (from his latest album "Blackstar"), entitled 'Lazarus', like the man Jesus resurrected from the dead. The video begins with Bowie, lying bandaged in a hospital bed, prophetically singing, "Look up here, I'm in heaven." He certainly is in heaven, but he leaves on earth his ageless and timeless characters, images and sounds.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments