It is surprising how, at times, a fashion collection moving from a sort of sci-fi art inspiration can indirectly make a political statement. But, somehow, this is what happened on Christopher Kane's A/W 17 runway.
Showcased during London Fashion Week, Kane's collection opened with a historical reference and a heritage homage interpreted as dresses made with peach, pink and blue neoclassical damasks by Gainsborough Silks (woven in England since 1903).
This was a sort of interior design connection rather than a fashion reference, considering that these fabrics are usually applied to furnishings.
The angular, jagged, sharp and stiff shapes of the dresses introduced themes that Kane explored later on in his collection – the future, cosmic designs and Space Age.
They were tackled via a trench coat covered with iridescent fabric strips, through pleated silvery gowns, holographic fabrics, cashmere cardigans covered in a metallic glaze, and prints of Ionel Talpazan's UFOs.
The late self-taught outsider artist Talpazan created throughout his life art inspired by an encounter he had with a UFO when he was a child in Romania.
He often showed these fantastic spaceships in cross-sectional diagrams that revealed how they worked and added explanatory texts in Romanian or English, using bold and bright colours to indicate the sources - nuclear, solar and electromagnetic energy - that powered them.
Talpazan even believed NASA could have learnt from his artwork and his ideas on issues such as advanced propulsion and accelerated space travel.
The artist was actually interested in the technology beyond UFOs thinking they could help bringing about a better world by introducing a benevolent technology. There was therefore a positive and encouraging message behind his art.
In the same way, there seemed to be a positive and youthful message behind Kane's lunar dresses, asymmetrical tops in shiny Constructivist block colours, grey cardigans edged in silver sequins, Space Age suits and in the closing looks decorated with cascades of sparkling appliquéd 3-D holographic flowers.
At times, though, simplicity worked better: his flowers seemed indeed les extravagant and more acceptable when they randomly decorated a pocket on a plain dress or a beige raincoat taken from another section of the runway show inspired by factory workers and laboratory technicians.
These workday designs were characterised by Velcro fastenings and the offer of this section of the catwalk show also included oversized wool coats and knits covered with pockets along the sleeves.
Accessories were similarly suspended between the factory floor and the spaceship factory: patent pumps were padded underfoot with industrial foam, a material that also decorated the upper (a decorative touch that the Surrealists would have loved or that you may see on Prada's runways...); but there were also holographic slippers (the ruby version was a combo of The Red Shoes and The Wizard of Oz), bejeweled Crocs lined in fur, and Kane's futuristic Safety Buckle bags and high-top sneakers.
As a whole the show didn't seem too coherent or cohesive and, while he stayed true to his personal vision, here and there Kane verged more towards Versace circa 1984 (remember the designer's oroton tops?) than towards a desperatively innovative space odyssey.
Bizarrelly enough, though, his schizophrenia represented pretty well the divided world in which we are living in: while Britain is caught in the Brexit dilemma, not too far from the venue for Kane's show (Tate Britain), people were protesting in favour of the UK staying in the EU and against President Trump's state visit to Britain.
Besides, while Kane's show was a moment of escapism, there was a very down to earth message in his art reference. Born in Romania, Ionel Talpazan ran away from his country at 19 swimming across the Danube River to Yugoslavia. He then joined a United Nations refugee camp and, declared a political refugee, he was accepted for U.S. residency and granted citizenship, settling down in New York. In a nutshell, Kane's trip to space was somehow more grounded in reality and in the current immigration issues than it seemed.
Comments