New York Fashion Week closes today and, though its programme featured over 100 shows, as a whole this edition wasn't certainly memorable, especially considering random plagiarisms and assorted useless collections.
One positive aspect, though, was that there was more diversity on the runways: Chromat's Becca McCharen-Tran continued for example her crusade about inclusive sizing.
The models on her runway came in all skin tones, shapes and ages and included transgender Leyna Bloom and plus-size supermodel Emme.
Though audacious, Chromat's offer is still limited to athleisure, so swimwear, body suits, active wear and body-con dresses, denim crop tops and G-strings (mainly accessorised wih bondage-inspired crystal necklaces, belts and thongs) prevailed. For the next season McCharen-Tran also included some body-con denim patchworked styles that looked made for curvy bodies.
While McCharen-Tran must definitely add some variation in her styles and working on her knowledge of materials wouldn't hurt, she featured in her show Emme walking down the runway in a cutout bathing suit and anti-chafing thigh bands on her legs, something you would never see on your usual fashion runway.
The designer also scattered on the seats zines made in collaboration with the models to make sure her audience discovered more about them. So, while the clothes still left something to be desired, the messages behind the show revolved around body positivity and empowering women and made you wonder if McCharen-Tran should consider a career in journalism rather than in fashion since she seems genuinely interested in giving a voice to the people she works with (she took her bow with producer, vocalist and designer Suzi Analogue).
Diversity was also on Philipp Plein's runway, together with some clothes in rather bad taste. Widely considered as the joke of Milan Fashion Week, a sort of king of kitsch and trash for his rather vulgarly bombastic celebrity-studded shows, Plein moved last season his presentations to New York. His S/S 18 runway was another grand affair that took place at Hammerstein Ballroom and comprised Dita Von Teese, Fifth Harmony and Yo Gotti.
The main theme of the show (comprising both men and women's wear) was "Good Gone Bad" and the main symbol of the collection was a ball-gagged and bonded character that looked like a crossover between Disney's Cinderella and the Blue Fairy out of Pinocchio.
One of such images was accompanied by the words "Plein Fairytale Crew", another by the sentence "Prince Charming Made Me Do It", hinting not at a personal passion for bondage, but at a woman's submission.
Now, while that may be the big moral question with this show (unnoticed by too many people...), the "inspiration" for this "exclusive" artwork probably came from a simple Google Search that must have revealed to Plein a whole world of gagged fairies and princesses (very Aliexpress T-shirt material...) that he appropriated without crediting any bondage princess illustrator in particular.
Write down "Disney Bondage Princesses" in Google and you will indeed get several of such images (but clear the history afterwards if your kids use your computer since you don't want to destroy their innocent visions of happy princesses too early in their minds...) and there's even a Pinterest board about the topic.
For what regards the "Good Gone Bad" slogan matched with a bondage Disney princess, well, graphic illustrator Evn Aguilar accused Plein of copying his illustration posted on his Instagram page in June and showing a bound and gagged Snow White.
The rest was more or less Plein's usual repertoire with crocodile biker jackets, acid-washed jeans, cropped shirts and sequined anorak jumpsuits, plus an abundance of harnesses, caged skirts and denim trousers covered in sparkling appliqued patches of Bambi and friends (most garments were mainly modelled by models with a Rapunzel-like long braid). Rather than working on the American market, Plein should maybe start worrying about a possible lawsuit from Disney.
So while Chromat was trying to empower women and Plein enslaved them again, Namilia designers' Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl tried to reshift the attention towards femininity, but ended up failing misearbly.
Their runway opened with a dress vaguely reminiscent of Renaissance costumes with two huge quilted vaginas for sleeves. More vaginas came back later on in the show on both skirt suits and tops, together with nipple pasties (a trend – as seen on Helmut Lang and Philipp Plen's runways as well), qipaos turned into thongs or spliced into uncanny mermaid tails (just don't try it...), while the tentacles of a random and bizarre octopus embraced and cocooned (or maybe suffocated?) a few of the models on the runway. Amateurish and rather incoherent, the show was at student level and somehow made you wonder if fashion weeks should just be abolished and relagated to a past of ephemeral superficiality.
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