As seen from the latest reviews about the S/S 18 fashion shows, finding the perfect inspiration for a brand new collection can be incredibly difficult and it may also prove rather tricky. A fashion designer may opt to move from a landscape, the memory of a research trip, an artist's work, but nowadays creative teams and designers must be very careful and avoid falling into the many traps they may find scattered on their paths, from coming up with a very literal interpretation of an idea to the possibility of ending up plagiarising something if they are not careful about the use of copyrights regarding a particular work of art they may want to use.
Matchless London, for example, found the dumbest and lamest inspiration they could have come up with for a capsule collection – Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation.
As seen in previous posts, fashion can be used to express political power or can be employed to protest against particular ideas: we have seen collections referencing the Scottish Independence Referendum, designers expressing their views about Brexit and anti-Trump protest-style pussy-eared beanie hats on Missoni A/W 2017's runway.
Yet Matchless London didn't use their collection to protest against Putin, like design duo Johnny Talbot and Adrian Runhof did in their S/S 15 collection.
A while back, Matchless announced indeed that it was going to unveil a jacket dedicated to Putin's 65th birthday (today, October 7) and images were released a few days ago.
The design was apparently inspired by the fact that everytime Putin was pictured leading the Kremlin-backed Russian motorcycle club the Night Wolves on a Harley Davidson he never seemed to wear a proper biker jacket.
So, Matchless thought it was about time to give him an adequate leather bomber piece. Part of the "Heroes Collection", the $1,699 "Putin" design looks like a motorcycle jacket but it is made with innovative hi-tech leather that resists extreme cold weather, up to minus 40 degrees Celsius. The Putin Jacket also features the number 6595 on the sleeve, a reference to the distance between the westernmost point (near Kaliningrad at the Russian-Polish border) and the easternmost point of Russia (Naukan on the Bering Strait facing Alaska) and a hint at Putin's age.
The jacket is part of a larger capsule collection inspired by Putin with jackets, coats and parkas that will be available at the label's London flagship store starting January 2018.
Manuele Malenotti, the Managing Director of Matchless London, stated in a press release that the brand is inspired by real and fictitious super heroes going from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Batman and James Bond. He added that they consider Putin "a modern superhero" with a "strong character, brutal image, sense of humor and calmness as a world leader".
Hmmm, sounds like Malenotti and the design team at Matchless were carried away by the sporty and macho image of Putin riding horses and playing ice hockey, but they seem to have forgotten about his controversial rise to power, government corruption, actions to suppress dissents in Russia and other assorted international actions including supporting oppressive regimes like Bashir al-Assad in Syria or being maybe involved in Trump's election in the States.
Then again, founded in 1899 in Britain as a motorcycle brand, Matchless was acquired by Franco Malenotti (Manuele's father), the man behind Belstaff, the same fashion brand that dared releasing in 2009 a cringing G8 jacket signed by former Italian Prime Minister (and Putin's friend) Silvio Berlusconi and given as a present to world leaders, so they seem to be well acquainted with politically incorrect merchandise.
The possibility of a Russian expansion and of making easy money by selling their products among Putin's supporters in Russia (such items are pretty popular among his fans as they promote the ideas Putin represents including power and control; a few years ago you may have found at Moscow's GUM, a T-shirt depicting Putin in a Hawaiian shirt, sipping on a colourful cocktail while vacationing in recently annexed Crimea... View this photo), must have blinded Matchless. Sadly, the jacket is not also bullet/poison proof, so Putin's rivals, enemies and dissidents may not be so wlling to go on a shopping spree when it becomes available.
A final suggestion to Matchless: next time keep your inspirations strictly geographical or focus on doing your recreations of cult outerwear donned by fictional characters à la Han Solo or Bruce Wayne, they may be unreal heroes, but they are definitely safer options on a political level.
Comments