Two days ago Stephanie Lake, designer, curator, auction specialist and the caretaker of the Bonnie Cashin archive (and author of the volume Bonnie Cashin: Chic Is Where You Find It), decided to take action against copies. Lake spotted on a blog a comparison between a Bonnie Cashin poncho designed in 1976 as part of a Saks Fifth Avenue/International Design Conference in Aspen, and a jacket from Raf Simons' Calvin Klein S/S 18 collection (we looked at Cashin's work a while back and mentioned her in connection with textile designer Bernat Klein, maybe Calvin Klein thought they were allowed to copy the design because of the similarities between surnames...). Surprised and annoyed, Lake opened the @cashincopy Instagram account. Lake has so far used it to point out garments "inspired" by Cashin and recreated by Miu Miu, Rachel Zoe, Lisa Perry and Coach (where Cashin worked until 1974), among the others.
Lake went on to explain on the Instagram page that Cashin did things with a purpose in mind: in the case of the design copied by Calvin Klein, the cape was orange because it had to guarantee high visibility while riding a bike or skating in New York City and it had large pockets so that the wearer would not need to carry a purse, avoiding in this way to be mugged.
You must admire Lake's efforts, but now the situation is more or less out of control and Cashin is just one of the many designers employed as "inspiration". There seems to be no time to study and create interesting clothes, therefore there is very little purpose in fashion, besides there are really too many collections, garments and accessories out there, hence there is also a proliferation of fakes, copies and imitations.
And then there is "the syndrome of Aliexpress".
Carefully analysed in detail in previous posts, the syndrome of Aliexpress is a bizarre reverse creative condition: in the past China-based manufacturers would churn out copies of all sorts of things - from garments and accessories to toys.
This practice continues at the moment, but it has been combined with another more perverse trend: fashion designers in a creative rut probably go online in search of inspiration. One thing leads to another and they end up stumbling upon Aliexpress where they find visually striking copies of items inspired by a specific character or trend and end up copying the copy. With a main difference: quite often they do a deal with the real company producing that particular brand or character, so that their garments are actually legal. It happened in previous seasons with the Powerf Puff Girls, SuperMario and the pharmacopoeia trend at Moschino for example.
For Moschino's S/S 18 collection Jeremy Scott did a licensing deal with Hasbro for My Little Pony. "Ah, genius", you may think, there's indeed a Little Pony film coming out soon.
Well, he actually didn't do a deal to use the latest generation of ponies, but Generation 1. The reason is very simple: the kids who were G1 fans are now grown-ups and probably have enough money to buy overpriced designer stuff that may help them dealing with childhood nostalgia. At the same time, younger consumers may want to buy into the products to add a vintage touch to their wardrobes.
On the runway Moschino's S/S 18 collection opened with pale blue and pink tutus matched with biker jackets and My Little Pony T-shirts.
The result was what may happen to The Girl on The Motorcycle if she had a road accident with a pink flamingo riding a pastel coloured pony/unicorn.
Then came an array of pony-shaped bags, mini-rucksacks with ponies and tops that are currently part of the S/S 18 Capsule Collection already available to buy (at disgustingly inflated prices) on the fashion house's site.
The pieces were matched with leather jackets (and leather jacket crossbody bags, a trope since Scott arrived at Moschino), satin bustiers and more frothing tulle tutus (that looked borrowed from Moschino's A/W 2016 collection).
Scott combined the latest cosplay looks for the Equestria girls (the designs on the runway looked like costumes rather than commercial garments...), with another inspiration – flowers.
Designs in bloom have always been fashionable, so this was a perfectly understandable inspiration, but, aside from the air freshener-shaped purses (a take on the spray paint can-shaped bag the designer did in a previous collection for Moschino), Scott didn't create much else.
He indeed borrowed and reinvented, creating grand gowns that were reminiscent of Dior's "Junon" dress or that evoked Christian Dior (by Galliano)'s A/W 2010 collection. He also came up with gowns made of fake blossoms that engulfed the models and that were slightly reminiscent of images of Sheila Legge, Surrealist Phantom at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London.
The show closed with two gowns that literally wrapped up models in floral bouquets, a sort of reinvention of Viktor & Rolf's 2009 costume for the opera "Der Freischütz" (The Freeshooter).
Lacking the natural surreal magic of Franco Moschino, Scott seems to be spending his time surfing the Internet or going to those licensing expo where you do deals with cartoon companies to use a popular character on your T-shirts, cereals and snacks.
Fair enough, this world is so dark and horrible that spreading some childish glee on it and copious amounts of glitter seems to be the best antidote to climate change, hurricanes, devasting earthquakes, clownish war-mongering politicians and such likes. Still this way of creating fashion is not convincing since using popular characters or producing knock-offs essentially proves ideas have more or less finished.
In the case of the Moschino/My Little Pony collection you may say that friendship is magic, but bland ideas and imitations are even better since they can be transformed into mobile phone covers in bright and striking colours and sold at immoral prices.
A final note for those readers who like ponies: there are some fake My Little Ponies T-shirts on Aliexpress that actually look more ironic and fun (and infinitely less saccharine) than the ones created by Moschino (apart from being cheaper obviously...). As for Scott, maybe next time he should spend a little bit more time browsing the site to get less bland and superficial results.
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