Dance fans will be happy to hear that the ballet references are continuing on the Parisian runways. Among the various ballet-inspired garments on Dior's runway there was the luxury version of a cheap staple in any dancer's wardrobe, the basic top made by recycling a pair of tights.
This piece also reappeared on Courrèges's runway that took place at the Avenue François 1er flagship: current Creative Director Yolanda Zobel came up with a youthful collection inspired by club kids and included in it some references to the founder, such as snap-front jackets and trousers, rectangular hats and white kid open-toe flat shoes. These Courrèges classics seem to perfectly fit with the ballet trend.
Among the other garments pointing at a ballet inspiration in this collection in which Zobel tried to use more natural-looking fabrics, there were also see-through synthetic body stockings and tops embellished with sparking appliqued elements and daisy nipple pasties (one of the tops was matched with a wearable architectural beige poncho). Entitled "The Future Is Behind You", the collection had some highlights - the trench coats - but was otherwise fragmented, disordered and unconvincing.
As part of the restructuring plan, Zobel pledged the house will soon go plastic free and designed a limited collection (called "Fin de Plastique") of numbered items (clothes, but also small accessories such as a drawstring bag and bow hairbands) made from 6,000 meters of vinyl leftovers from the house archives (a way to say good-bye to the past and highlight the fact that plastic based materials deteriorate and decay).
Time will tell if things will commercially work out for Courrèges, in the meantime, if you want to follow the crop top trend, get an old pair of tights, cut them and embellish them as much as you like.
While this may be a fun way to create something very quickly, this exercise will also make you think: while even barre work in ballet has changed considerably over the last 200 years since it was first established in the 19th century by the influential teacher and dancer Carlo Blasis, fashion only pretends to be looking at the future but then, by reproducing something as basic as tights transformed into crop tops, confirms us that it hasn't changed much after all. Oh well, at least now we know what fashionistas may want to wear when they pretend to be engaged in an intensive work out à la barre.
Every year couture steps onto the stage of the New York City Ballet for the Fall Fashion Gala, an event conceived by NYCB Board Vice Chair Sarah Jessica Parker and first launched in 2012. Since then, it has seen all sorts of designers collaborating with the company - from Olivier Theyskens and Valentino to Iris van Herpen, Dries Van Noten, Jason Wu, Virgil Abloh of Off-White, Rosie Assoulin, Thom Browne, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen and Tsumori Chisato (just to mention a few...).
The designers involved bring their unique vision to the company, but they also end up learning a lot from the company's in-house costume ateliers, where seamstresses, pattern-cutters and textile experts are co-ordinated by costume director Marc Happel.
While the main hope behind this project is attracting new audiences to ballet, the Fashion Gala is also a great way to be more experimental and prompt fashion designers and young choreographers to create new work.
This year choreographer Matthew Neenan was matched with Gareth Pugh; Gianna Reisen was paired with Alberta Ferretti and Kyle Abraham worked with Giles Deacon.
Both Neenan and Abraham produced their first work for the company, "The Exchange" and "The Runaway", while Reisen, who at 19 is the youngest of the lot, her second ballet to NYCB's repertory, "Judah".
Showcased on Thursday evening the performances (more shows are scheduled for next week on 4th and 6th October) couldn't have been more different: there were definitely no pink tutus in Matthew Neenan's "The Exchange".
Pugh, who has so far worked as a costume designer for modern choreographies by Wayne McGregor, created in this case almost graphically brutalist designs.
Pugh went for wide-legged trousers and harness-style tops for the male dancers, severely architectural outfits that called to mind Alexander McQueen's costumes for Robert Lepage's "Eonnagata"; female dancers wore instead long hooded blood red flowing monastic robes (maybe not the most perfect solution for the cleanest fashion steps...) that opened up in strips as the performers twirled. Dramatic make up was instrumental with heavy blackened eyes for men and red masks for women.
Though the costumes weren't as body morphing as the ones for McGregor's "Carbon Life", they still pointed at darkly Gothic moods as the men's designs evoked elements of an executioner's uniform and went well with the almost geomerical movement devised by Neenan.
Ferretti's designs restored the delicate balance that classically trained audiences usually favour: though originally the designer wanted the costumes to be made in organza (a fabric that suits a runway, but not a stage), the NYCB costume atelier highlighted how it wouldn't have been good when dancers performed.
The choice therefore fell on chiffon stripes pieced together forming red and green ombre dresses; the same technique was employed for the bodysuits with appliqued silhouettes of dancers. The effect was romantic and feminine and the flowy dresses went well with the choreography, even though it was the third part of the gala that proved to be the most convincing.
Deacon created indeed a narrative based on a modern reinterpretation of Renaissance elements such as breechers, codpieces and ruffs in a black and white abstract graphic print. Some of the dancers looked like court jesters with burnt pheasant feather hairpieces giving them an animalesque touch.
The music was a mix of Nico Muhly, Jay-Z, James Blake and Kanye West and, while the choice was controversial, Kyle Abraham, founder of the A.I.M. contemporary dance company, came up with fierce and energetic steps. At times they were a combination of classical ballet, modernism, break dance and hip hop, like the triumphant solos with Taylor Stanley.
Who knows if George Balanchine would have liked the idea of matching choreographers and fashion designers, but the gala has proved financially successful for the company and has raised more than $15 million for the New York City Ballet since the project started in 2012.
The company needed an uplifting event to kick off the new season this year: following sexual misconduct allegations by a former student, the New York City Ballet terminated two male principal dancers and accepted the resignation of another. Hopefully, the dark clouds have now parted and the company can refocus on producing innovative pieces and fashion collaborations.
The first ever Italian exhibition entirely devoted to the art of Léon Bakst, the celebrated Ballets Russes set and costume designer, is indeed opening next week at Palazzo Cini (Campo San Vio, Dorsoduro 864; from 5th October to 19th November 2018).
Produced jointly by the Fondazione Cini Institute of Theatre and Opera and the Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music, "Léon Bakst. Symbol of the Ballets Russes" features rare stage and costume designs from the Saint Petersburg Museum archives, plus programmes and items from the archive of choreographer Aurél M. Milloss, preserved at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.
Born in Grodno in 1866, Bakst showed an interest in the visual arts from an early age: accepted to study at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1883, he started working as illustrator for magazines and children's books and, in 1890, was introduced to Alexandre Benois.
In the decade that followed he travelled through Europe and, between 1893 and 1896, he lived in Paris where he studied at the Académie Julian with Jean-Léon Gérôme. Upon his return to Russia he became part of the Mir Iskusstva (The World of Art) group, with his friends Alexandre Benois and Sergei Diaghilev.
Bakst developed an interest for theatrical productions and began to design scenery in the early 1900s: he first worked for the Imperial theatres of Saint Petersburg and, in 1909, he went to Paris where he designed stage sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Bakst worked on these productions with his preferred costume maker, Madame Marie Muelle who provided him with the best quality fabrics, adding appliquéd or embroidered decorative elements to the costumes.
His designs brought innovation to the stage and to ballet, while his passion for fable-like oriental and exotic styles influenced the fashion designers of those times such as Paul Poiret.
The exhibition at Palazzo Cini starts with Bakst's early works for Le Coeur de la Marquise, choreographed by Marius Petipa (1902), and Greek tragedies Hippolytus (1902) and Oedipus at Colonus (1904). The core of the event though consists of Bakst's designs for the most famous Ballets Russes productions, including Cléopâtre with Anna Pavlova and Ida Rubinstein, and Daphnis et Chloé with choreography by Michel Fokine. The exhibition features designs, stage photographs and the costumes for these ballets, including the sensual "Queen of Egypt" costume made for Ida Rubinstein.
One section of the events includes works that revolve around the theme of colour, so materials relating to the decor and costumes for Carnaval (1910), L'Oiseau de Feu (1910), Narcisse (1911) and Le Dieu Bleu (1912), all choreographed by Fokine, who revolutionised steps and movements creating ballets full of emotions.
With music by Igor Stravinsky, L'Oiseau de Feu (1910) featured Tamara Karsavina and Vera Fokina in the parts of The Firebird and Princess Tsarevna. Bakst's costumes for them were inspired by traditional Russian art, but, for other ballets, the artist also borrowed from Greek classicism and reworked these inspirations through his personal vision.
The event at Palazzo Cini is not just about the Ballets Russes: when Bakst's influence started to wane and Diaghilev turned to other artists, Bakst worked on opera productions including Jules Massenet's Thaïs, Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, Charles Gounod's Faust and Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Bakst also collaborated with Italian decadent poet and writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, designing the sets for Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, premièred at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, on 22 May 1911 with music by Claude Debussy.
Bakst's rich, sensual and decandent illustrations, the geometric patterns on the costumes (check out one of his trademarks - colourful zigzagging motifs), the visually striking chromatic combinations and juxtapositions of colours, were recreated in the costumes employing different techniques, from painting and dying to embroidery, beading, sequins, metal studs, braids, pearls and jewels.
Despite the legend saying that Madame Muelle employed for the costumes designed by Bakst a secret metal thread that never tarnished, not all the designs are in absolutely perfect conditions (the performers danced in these creations that were therefore ruined by sweat, damp and moisture). Yet, even a century later, they remain symbols of a new aesthetic, triumphs of Dionysian beauty and expressions of a revolutionary art still capable to enchant modern visitors and audiences from all over the world.
Somehow this is a rather natural connection: designers should know what fits or does not fit the human body and can create garments that could highlight and facilitate the most intriguing steps, creations that at the same time retain the beauty and elegance of rare Haute Couture designs (or at least you would think so...).
The collaboration worked well also for corps de ballet and companies interested in introducing younger audiences to the performing arts and make an old and refined art such as ballet more alive and relevant to our days.
Yet there has recently been a major shift in trends and a few fashion brands moved from costumes to choreographers: the epitome of coolness at the moment is indeed not creating costumes for a ballet, but getting a cool choreographer who can design for your runway show / presentation movements that can go well with the clothes.
As you may remember from a previous post, Phelan's S/S 16 collection opened with a performance featuring four female dancers choreographed by Vim Vigor Dance Company founder Shannon Gillen.
Gucci's S/S 19 took place in Paris on Monday, but was anticipated last week by a unique performance at the Milan-based Gucci Hub by Michael Clark.
The British dancer and choreographer is not new to fashion collaborations and Alexander McQueen's fans may remember that, in October 2003, he choreographed McQueen's S/S 2004 "Deliverance" collection (McQueen was among the first modern designers who worked with a choreographer on a runway show; while Gianni Versace, a friend and collaborator of Maurice Béjart, mainly focused on creating costumes for performances). That collection, as you may remember, was inspired by Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses Don't They? a drama about a dance marathon that prompts many desperate couples competing for a money prize (McQueen's runway featured professional dancers and models moving, dancing and running till they collapsed on the floor with exhaustion).
Clark did not take to the Hub a completely new show, but a combination of his company's performance on Erik Satie's music and his tribute to David Bowie, danced on tracks from "Aladdin Sane" e "Diamond Dogs".
The show was therefore a juxtaposition of two broken narrations – both characterised by all the raw beauty of Clark's performances, but essentially divided in two blocks of living tableaux, one more refined, the other more energetic.
The dancers of the Michael Clark Company were clad in the same costumes they have used so far for the same performances at the Barbican Center with black and white body suits for the first part and in a red body suit matched with a revisioned version of David Bowie's iconic 1973 Ziggy Stardust striped blazer (maybe the inspiration behind Gucci's S/S 19 jacket?).
Gucci fans were probably disappointed as costume-wise there weren't a lot of garments designed by Alessandro Michele, but Clark and other dancers appeared in remixed Gucci tracksuits, nothing memorable.
It was actually surprising that Clark, who has a passion for garments that modify the way the human body moves like the ones made in collaboration with the late Leigh Bowery, went for something rather tamed (why not choosing any of the most outrageous styles from recent collections?).
That said, Clark's choreographies are aimed at showing the body movements and not the clothes, so it was only natural for fashion to take a secondary role in this case (mind you, fashion-wise the company's trademark tomato red body suit matched with Bowie's jacket still seemed more desirable than Gucci's tracksuits).
During Paris Fashion Week also Maria Grazia Chiuri turned to dance and to a unique choreographer to present her new collection for Dior.
The dance reference started outside the venue, the Hippodrome de Longchamp, a horseracing track on the banks of the Seine.
Quotes by assorted choreographers covered the façade of the show space: they went from "Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual" by Isadora Duncan to "I'm not interested in how people move, I'm interested in what makes them move" by Pina Bausch, "The Story Comes From Inside the Body" and "The most important thing is to enjoy dancing. And research inside your body, feel free – we are perfect as we are" by Sharon Eyal.
The main theme of the collection was actually linked with the history of the French maison: Christian Dior collaborated with Roland Petit on the ballet "Treize Danses" (1947), and one the most famous clients of the house was dancer Margot Fonteyn (Dior himself designed her wedding dress).
Chiuri caught the dance bug last year when she was commissioned costumes for the American Ballet Theatre's Works & Progress at the Guggenheim for the piece "Falls the Shadow", choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo.
For the S/S 19 collection, Chiuri turned to Tel Aviv-based Sharon Eyal for a unique choreography, performed by Eyal herself and eight dancers from her company.
Clad in their illustrated bodysuits and leggings, the dancers moved beautifully in the hall while petals fell from the ceiling: their bodies seemed to rhythmically flex and pulse when the models passed next to them; at times they marvelled at the models, at others they inquisitively looked at their gowns or accompanied them around the runway.
The clothes were obviously inspired by ballet and the dance world: the show opened on a Pina Bausch note (so apt in these "Suspiria"-Pina Bausch times...), then it moved towards the Greek style tunics of Isadora Duncan and the transparencies of the costumes designed by Lois Hutton for Margaret Morris.
Things gradually transformed maybe hinting at dancers rehearsing and layering their clothes; then came references to Loïe Fuller, in tie-dye motifs in which subtle sparkles of yellow seemed to hint at hand-coloured silent films of the Serpentine Dance.
Accessories were also borrowed from the world of dance, see the elastic headbands and slippers with straps around the ankle. The colour palette remained muted, revolving around beige and nude, with some olive green and navy added.
The best thing about the collection weren't the very literal inspirations to dance (there are umpteenth collections inspired by ballet, among them Galliano's A/W 2011 menswear designs that moved from Rudolf Nureyev and Vaslav Nijinsky), but the way the inspiration was used to create interesting artisanal elaborations such as pleated gowns inspired by Grecian styles, fishnet body stockings and knitwear and coats with a degrading effects, or dresses that were entirely made out of braided tulle that reproduced a sort of macramé-like effect.
The dresses and skirts covered in tiny feathers creating colourful motifs hinted at the feathers in ballerina costumes (think "Swan Lake"), but there were also styles that called to mind Léon Bakst's costumes for the Ballets Russes' "Narcisse" and "L'Après-midi d'un Faune".
Chiuri was making a comparison here between fashion and ballet: the former transforms the bodies of consumers (think about corsets and high heels...), but so does ballet. Yet choreographers such as Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch, liberated the body.
The designer proceeded therefore to do the same maintaining Dior's silhouettes, but removing corsets and rigid structures in favour of softer constructions with fabrics such as jersey (a textile that calls to mind Martha Graham's costume in "Lamentation") and tulle on a bodysuit base (or on the popular logo bras with elasticated waistband) that allowed movement.
There were some faux pas: at times the dancers looked more intriguing than the models, and you surprised yourself thinking that the models were just distracting the audience from following a rather entertaining and beautifully choreographed dance show.
The other mistake was the fact that, if this was a collection about liberating the body, it meant liberating it only for those women with perfect bodies like the models on the runway, in a nutshell there was not much diversity.
Still doubting? Well, Karl Lagerfeld has also designed Chanel costumes for the pas de deux of "Bolero", to be performed tonight by Diana Vishneva, prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Ballet, and Aurélie Dupont, director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet, at the company's opening gala at the Palais Garnier.
Besides, all these ballet inspirations tie in rather well with two new films about Rudolf Nureyev: the recently released documentary "Nureyev" by Jacqui and David Morris, featuring previously unseen footage of the dancer, and the fictionalised account of the dancer's life "The White Crow", directed by Ralph Fiennes (to be released next year).
In conclusion, as one of the quotes by Pina Bausch read outside Dior's show, "Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost", as for the clothes, they may be beautiful and cleverly designed or not, but they are simply redundant at the moment. Yes, they are part of a trend, but it looks like the desire to athletically leap in the air like Nureyev at the moment is stronger than the will to rush to buy the next "It" bag or ballerina gown. So side with your favourite choreograopher and, well, just dance!
The theme of the "non finito" (unfinished) has always been an inspiring one for creative minds. This is perfectly understandable considering that the "non finito" leaves open many possibilities compared to what is finished and therefore has become unchangeable and finally frozen in a perennial state.
The "non finito" instead is a strong inspiration as it pushes a creative person to continue looking for solutions to a project or to keep on working on something to refine it and make it look even better.
The term "unfinished" was also employed by some theatre critics to define the theatre of certain actors and directors, such as Italian Leo De Berardinis: while the latter produced perfectly finished shows, they often represented an infinite movement, something impossible to define once and for all, a continuous and dynamic research.
In the history of theatre De Berardinis became more known for his work in collaboration with actress Perla Peragallo: together the duo entered the history of experimental theatre with their controversial "Hamlet" (1967) and "Sir and Lady Macbeth" (1968) and with their collaborations with another Italian avant-garde writer, actor and director, Carmelo Bene.
It was only apt then that a short and rather psychedelic extract from one of De Berardinis and Peragallo's works opened the Gucci show that on Monday kicked off Paris Fashion Week. In a way Alessandro Michele's collections for Gucci are endless examples of "non finito".
Showcased at the iconic Théâtre Le Palace, famous in ’70s and early ’80s for being the house of hedonism, the catwalk featured models walking through the dark theatre and quietly assembling on the stage as if they were actors on a stage or maybe people on a night out.
There was only one element that broke the monotonous rhythm of their incessant walk - Jane Birkin who stood up from her front row seat to sing "Baby Alone in Babylone" during a short interlude, then the runway resumed.
The clothes and accessories? Nothing surprisingly new to what Alessandro Michele has concocted up to now for Gucci. The S/S 19 collection was indeed another extended remix of Michele's favourite tropes: there were nerds and geeks, some of them wearing bejewelled codpieces on their rather boring '70s trousers; dresses came with distorted silhouettes of the kind that look awkward even on models with the most sculpted and toned bodies (and of the kind influencers seem to favour as they probably get given them for free...).
There were pleated kimono jackets that called to mind nightmarish visions of glammed up Krizia jumpsuits (rather than pointing at Issey Miyake, as some critics stated); chaps-like denims were anchored with chains as if they were suspenders (don't try this at home); there were appalling normcore shirts that may have come out of the recycle bin, but that power brands want you to believe are currently super cool and scarf dresses of the sort your aunt used to come up with in the early '80s collaging together old scarves.
Then there were zombie girls in ruffled dresses and Venetian calcagnini – pardon, platform shoes; there were echoes of David Bowie in his iconic 1973 Ziggy Stardust striped blazer that has been the prostitute of striped jackets in the last 10 years being recreated in Givenchy's S/S 2010 collection and then ending up on the clothes racks of many High Street retailers (mind you, in this case it was turned into a zigzagging blazer for that minor change that will avoid Michele being accused of copying things) and jackets, trousers and dresses covered in sparkling glitter and lurex fringes (the dress looked like an updated version of Poiret's outlandish Fountain Dress).
Dolly Parton's face appeared instead on a pink Barbie doll tracksuit (but maybe next season rather than Dolly Parton merch Gucci could go for "Debbie Does Dallas" merch, bet that even in this case everybody would nod in approval...).
Accessories went from patches representing sequinned flying pigs, a reference to the way of saying, to bejewelled lace gloves (of the kind you would buy in 1983 in an Italian department store when you wanted to play at being Madonna...), from lace hosiery (of the kind that had you scratching your legs like crazy at parties between 1984 and 1985) to Janis Joplin-inspired hats and Mickey Mouse lunch box-shaped bags (unclear if they bought them at Disneyland or on the Internet, or if this is the latest super collab that we all needed in our sad lives).
Something was missing this time - fake animals and severed human heads: this time there was indeed a real Cockatoo, quietly sitting on a model's shoulder (again, don't try this at home it usually doesn't work...).
It is undeniable that Gucci's collections have become demented lands of appalling contrasts: your senses are overloaded by perfectly studied assemblages of different elements that look like living dichotomies when they are arranged on the models' bodies.
Once you break the looks into smaller parts, though, you realise that what you are being sold is a wardrobe from 1973-1974 with some heavy references to the '80s, glammed up, repurposed and combined with references from other eras and times, from history and art, creating cheap anachronisms with luxury scarves.
Michele's looks appeal because they are visually overloaded and therefore they are easily Instagrammable, shareable on social media and likeable.
One critic will spot La Casati, another Salome; an influencer will say that a look was inspired by a character out of a Wes Anderson film, and who could be that guy, some kind of prince from a faraway exotic land or a fetish nerd?
Yet this endless remix (there's always almost 100 looks in the shows) that confounds and spellbinds critics can be easy to decode for those ones willing to do so: there's always a lot of history and classical culture in Michele's collections for Gucci, a high degree of Roman decadence and bad taste and some help from one or two slightly more mature consultants who are silently playing guardian angels and providing forgotten archival material (spot the Fiorucci reference in the strawberry shirt with a crazy clashing pattern and the moniker "Gucci" vaguely looking like "Fiorucci", do your fashion math and you may even guess the names).
Somehow you feel like laughing: many young people nowadays live in technologically advanced times but their feet are solidly planted in the past as proved by these collections.
Mind you, the past is endlessly remixed (we must thank Miuccia for teaching the skills and the basics, but we have reached perfection now, thank you), proving that to resurrect a house you don't even need to create anything, but you must carefully assemble things and make them desirable on social media.
Yet at the end of it all there's something to rejoice about for us: while Gucci has turned from fashion house into cool hashtag and Jared Leto may have found his wardrobe for the next season, we ordinary people can now rush online and search on eBay or Amazon for that elusive Aladdin Industries vintage Mickey Mouse lunchbox that will make us look impossibly hip come next Spring.
After all deep down we do miss our childhood, while deep down I miss accidental fashion: in Gucci's shows everything is studied and nothing is genuinely underground, even the most bizarre character on the runway reeks of affected eccentricity and not of the spontaneous craziness of pure, undiluted fashion madness. You naturally wonder if Gucci's Theatre of the "Non Finito" will go on forever or if it will eventually find one day its logical conclusion. Guess only time till tell.
Do you work in the fashion industry and sometimes complain about the fact that its rhythms have become dishuman and impossibly fast? Are you a fashion designer paralised by the anxiety to finish a collection as the deadline slowly approaches and you feel your creations aren't even remotely interesting?
If you answered yes to these questions, well, don't expect to get any encouragement or sympathising pats on your back from Jeremy Scott.
The designer ironically employed as inspirations for Moschino's S/S 19 collection, showcased last week during Milan Fashion Week, themes deeply linked with contemporary fashion, from its relentless pace to the pressure on designers.
Everything started indeed with a joke at the expense of all those designers who complain about having to create one collection after the other and not having enough time to properly finish their work.
Yet Scott's collection wasn't actually incomplete: it featured indeed clothes, accessories and even the new Moschino fragrance, in a big bear-shaped bottle.
All the pieces were inspired by the idea of garments in the making: the concept was represented by white dresses and suits, their vibrantly coloured patterns of squiggles and dots (or lines replicating Chanel's classic tweed designs) quickly scribbled in with a heavy marker or felt pen print.
The clothes were matched with hats and hosiery (in collaboration with Wolford) with the same graphic motif that contributed to give the impression the models on the runway were wearing two-dimensional pieces.
The idea was surreally interpreted in the half-formed dresses that seemed to emerge from a bolt of fabric, in the black gowns with a gigantic pair of silver shears or covered with tinkling rows of needles (this design was matched with a gold thimble headdress) and in a yellow measuring tape turned into a boa donned by a model in a bodysuit replicating the body of a Stockman dummy (far from being a hint at eroticism and S&M, the effect of this design was actually quite disturbing...).
The set evoked memories of Yves Saint Laurent's atelier, but Scott also borrowed from the iconic designer some of his '80s Haute Couture shapes and silhouettes, in particular the suits, sensual wrap dresses and pouf skirts, some of them decorated with large bows and accessorised with boater hats.
Scott stated in interviews with the fashion media that, contrary to other designers, he feels at ease with the fashion rhythms as he's trained to follow them.
Malignant critics may add that he doesn't have a problem since his ideas are not completely original, so he doesn't really spend too much time creating things from scratch.
In the case of Moschino's S/S 19 collection, a day after the show a Norwegian womenswear designer based in London claimed on Instagram that Scott had taken inspiration from her designs.
Edda Gimnes, whose works were featured on different fashion magazines, pointed similarities with her Spring 2016 and Spring 2017 collections that included scribbled dresses, hats and bags characterised by trompe l'oeil details.
To validate the accusation and prove this was not just a case of similarities, Gimnes also claimed she had met with someone from Moschino in New York at the end of 2017 and showed that person her work, including her sketchbooks and ideas.
Looking at the juxtapositions of images on Gimnes' Instagram feed you can easily spot the similarities that also include some patterns and colours (mind you, also Gimnes' designs do reference other creations as well, with a top matched with a pair of trousers hinting at Courreges's iconic 1960s trouser suits with some echoes of the costumes from Jean Dubuffet's Coucou Bazar added in - View this photo).
Those ones out there who still have a good fashion memory may remember also scribbled designs in the S/S 12 collection of Russian designer Vika Gazinskaya; then there was Comme des Garçons' scribbled menswear collection (A/W 15-16; could those scribbled leggings be the inspiration behind Scott's hosiery?), and, last but not least, a while back Burberry also did a coat with the house check turned into a hand-scribbled motif.
Who knows, maybe all these elements and inspirations were collectively behind Moschino's S/S 19 collection, and if that's the case the best thing the offended designers should do (considering that Scott may easily defend himself saying that the main print employed in this collection is a generic scribble rather than a precise motif) is to mock Scott with a project like the "Jeremy Scott Free Inspiration Gallery", launched in 2016 by New York-based artist and photographer Adrian Wilson after the copyright infringement case involving graffiti artist Joseph Tierney, aka Rime, who sued Moschino over the fashion house's A/W 16 collection that featured work from a mural he did.
It would be really sad if Moschino's scribbled and sketched clothes and accessories were really the result of a pilfering exercise (and if it were the case, it wouldn't even be the first time that an established fashion house would be accused of stealing ideas from a young creative mind) as this would prove that Scott doesn't have any problems in finishing his collections because he knows how and where to steal ideas.
As for spotting copyright infringements, well, the Moschino and H&M collaboration is due to hit the shops in November, so get ready for that, there's some exercises in pilfering on the horizon.
Italian designer Gabriele Colangelo developed throughout the years an in-depth knowledge of fabrics, textile elaborations and dyes: he originally comes from a family of furriers, but diversified his experience working for other companies and often travelling to Japan to study the local fabrics.
Having an arty sensibility means that Colangelo spent the last few years trying to inject his passion for art into wearable pieces. The main inspiration behind the S/S 19 collection was for example Franco-Hungarian artist Simon Hantaï.
Hantaï moved to Paris at the end of the '40s and, after a first fascination with Surrealism, he began experimenting with other art forms: in the '50s he spent for example an entire year covering a canvas with handwritten texts copied from books on religion, art, poetry, and philosophy, layering them until they could no longer be read.
He then turned to abstractions and developed the technique of "pliage": he started folding, tying, even stepping on his canvases prior to applying paint. He would then wait for the canvases to dry before unfolding them and revealing unexpected images or patterns created by painted areas and blank sections.
Colangelo's designs, showcased during Milan Fashion Week, were characterised by streamlined silhouettes and a layered style with skirt suits matched with georgette pants or slip dresses layered on trousers, maybe a styling option dictated by a will to indirectly referencing Hantaï's process of layering texts on canvases.
The experiments with pliage and in particular Hantaï's "Studies", inspired the main part of the collection (folding is also a reference to origami, something that fits with Colangelo's Japanese sensibility...): Hantaï's cracked surfaces, especially in deep shades of blue were replicated onto white coats, skirts and slip dresses producing a final effect similar to tie-dye.
Cotton was painted and knotted, immersed in a dye and then unknotted: like Hantaï Colangelo turned absence into presence, prompting people to look at the white on his designs not as a background colour, but as a dynamic part of the design.
The aesthetic was minimal, but there were intricate surface elaborations adding a tactile quality to his designs: sparkles of gold orange provided a variation in this collection that mainly revolved around a white, indigo and navy palette with some flashes of jade. The orange tones breaking through the fabric of a trench coat and a skirt dress may have been a reference to the kintsugi and kintsukuroi techniques.
Hantaï's gridded compositions called "Tabulas" inspired instead checkered obi belts marking the waist on trouser suits and sporty dresses.
The unfolding process inspired to Colangelo softer lines, less rigorous than his usual ones, while leather apron-like skirts and contrast-stitched seaming on jackets and shirts pointed at the designer's experience on the factory floor.
Aside from the textile reference, there is actually another connection between Colangelo and Hantaï: in 1983 the artist refused a commission to decorate the ceiling of the Brussels Opera House, stating, "The art market is the greatest danger that modern art has to face...money decides what art gets made. Our only defense is to refuse to participate." (Hantaï eventually ceased to exhibit in galleries).
Colangelo has undoubtedly got a great knowledge when it comes to fabrics and textiles, he is never vulgar nor extremely conceptual and favours slow experimentations to the relentless fast rhythms that are killing fashion and to superficial trends.
It is only natural therefore for him to reject a fashion industry that revolves around the same mechanism that, as Hantaï stated, represented (but still represents nowadays...) a threat to the art market - money - and a fashion scene mainly promoting designs that look instantly good on social media, but that are not destined to last. Shame that a high quality fabric or an experimental surface eleboration are much more difficult to explain on Instagram than a sparkling coat made of colourful tinsel foil, but the time will definitely come when knowledge will replace mere visual pleasure. Hopefully Colangelo will resist till then.
Let's continue the ceramic thread that started with yesterday's post by looking at an exhibition opening next week at the Milan-based Gió Marconi Gallery (Via Tadino 20).
"Period" by Canadian-born London-based artist Allison Katz (opening on Tuesday until 10th November 2018) will indeed focus on ceramics and in particular on glazed plates.
Katz, who studied at Concordia University in Montreal before moving to New York and then settling down in London, is more famous for her paintings and posters, like the ones exhibited during the summer as part of her first solo exhibition in the States (organised at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston) - "Diary w/o Dates".
That event featured twelve paintings in which the artist explored the fracture between the past and the future, creating juxtapositions or parallelisms revolving around themes such as time, order and disorder.
Nature, the body and the city are just some of the topics Katz touches upon in her paintings, often characterised by vibrantly clashing shades, but also by contrasting feelings and moods.
Some of these themes and the glossary Katz created in her paintings reappear in her ceramic pieces, but with a new added value - the artist's deep fascination with the possibilities offered by ceramic and by the different techniques used to create these pieces and the materiality of the glazes.
Katz started experimenting with this format around 2011, concentrating more on this medium during the summer of 2017 while on residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy.
The glazes were inspired by Katz's studies in the history of ceramics from the Umbria region: one of the manufacturing stages that interests the artist the most was the transformation inside the kiln since it represents a sort of point of no return, the stage when the glaze finally seals the piece. Katz was particularly attracted by the outstanding tin-glazed earthenware in Deruta.
In "Period" Katz's themes come back on the plates, they are used as a personal glossary and alphabet, a symbolic system replicated on everyday (but non-functional) objects - plates.
This visual lexicon made of black pears, noses, roosters, monkeys and models, tells colourful stories and replicates vignettes onto ceramics in the form of a diary: at times the images hint at puns and word associations, creating a juxtaposition between the artist's visual and verbal codes.
This is not the first time Katz exhibited at the Gió Marconi Gallery: a couple of years ago she did a site-specific installation of paintings at the gallery, but the event symbolically opens another chapter in Katz's career since it anticipates the publication of the first monograph about her work, due in December.
A friend and contemporary of Lucio Fontana and Gio Ponti, the artist is known for his sculptures, ceramic figures, vases and bowls often inspired by musical abstractions.
Melotti is actually rather trendy at the moment as there is an exhibition dedicated to him at Hauser & Wirth in New York (until 27th October).
The opening looks in the collection were literal interpretations of the main inspiration as they featured prints of Melotti's 1950s glazed ceramic pieces representing a minimalist giraffe.
The latter appeared on dresses and skirts, but soon the Melotti reference became an abstraction: Arbesser reworked indeed the textures, swirls and surfaces of Melotti's ceramic vases and bowls in jacquard textiles used for jackets, coats, skirts and tops or tried to create Melotti's irregular three-dimensional effects by scattering sequins on fabrics.
Arbesser also layered different patterns together, from the argyle to the check pattern, a trick he learnt how to master collection after collection.
At times he looked at one of his favourite references – the Vienna Secession (Arbesser is Austrian) – via geometric prints, coming up with Klimt-like moments in a long dress with a green-and-white check, while a final ample kaftan matched with a black and white checked body suit was probably a homage to the style of Klimt's lover and muse, Emilie Louise Flöge.
The protagonist of Arbesser's fashion story was a woman, an artist working in her studio, getting her hands dirty with clay, so the designer also included simple rough jute workwear-evoking designs that added an arty neutral element to the collection.
The ceramic reference returned at the very end with two disharmonious designs that seemed to reproduce in their distorted silhouette the shapes of Melotti's vases.
There were some references to Melotti in the accessories (the long earrings seemed to be a tribute to Melotti's vertical brass and metal sculptures), even though the focus was on the clothes. In a way that was a shame as Melotti also produced a few ceramic jewels and it would have been intriguing to see where the inspiration may have led Arbesser had he transferred it also to necklaces or bangles.
Arbesser has a great knowledge when it comes to art and art movements as proved also in previous collections: his designs are the result of an intellectual fashion process and could be considered as creations for self-confident women with a passion for layering multi-patterned pieces together.
That said, Arbesser must find a way to balance the arty and the commercial in one collection: at the moment he is also the creative director of outerwear label Fay and seems to have decided to design wearable pieces for this label, restricting his arty and eccentric influences to the collections released under his name.
Melotti's ceramic vases were often so delicate and fragile that you couldn't even use them for a flower and Arbesser risks of turning his clothes into arty but unwearable garments if he doesn't strip them of their conceptualism.
The greatest lesson Arbesser should have indeed learnt from Melotti does not regard the texture and shapes of his ceramic pieces, but it should have definitely been about lightness and weightlessness.
The first dichotomy or contrast at Prada's S/S 19 runway show, that took place yesterday evening during Milan Fashion Week, was the space: the industrial Deposito of the Fondazione Prada complex was indeed transformed by an intervention by AMO into a venue for performances.
The configuration was based on the classical spatial repertoire of the theatre with an acid green Terrace, a Parterre characterised by a graphic grid and populated with inflatable stools by Verner Panton (an exclusive re-edition of the 1960s piece, produced by VERPAN for Prada and already adopted for the men's show in June) and a Balcony.
The second dichotomy mainly referenced the clothes: Miuccia Prada stated indeed in a press conference that she was surprised by the contrast between people's thirst for liberation, freedom and fantasy, and at the same time the rise of a suffocating conservatism.
This could be applied to the States and to Trump's politics, but also to the rest of the world and to Italy in particular where the new populist government doesn't seem to have a real political programme and the political discourse is suffocated by violent and aggressive slogans by the Interior Minister using social media as his own megaphone.
Miuccia Prada didn't mention anybody in particular, but highlighted how she hates the way politics has been reduced to hashtags with absolutely no content.
The designer therefore wondered if fashion is being reduced to a series of hashtags as well and, though worried about the impact of simplifying the industry and reducing it to a series of mere slogans, she turned to simplifications in her clothes to amplify her political message.
Prada's preoccupations and the liberal vs conservative dichotomy materialised in the clothes and accessories for the S/S 19 collection as a play between opposite forces such as the casual and the formal.
The models opening the show walked down a runway marked by geographical coordinates (a way to geolocalise the audience and remind them where they were) wearing satin turtlenecks or swimwear inspired knitwear with a strap under the breasts matched with Bermuda shorts or with skirts wrapped at the side.
Girls in pristine coats and peacoats buttoned up to the neck and in duchesse satin A-line baby doll dresses followed, echoing a mix of designs by Courreges (circa 1965) and Cardin (circa 1968) with a touch of Mia Farrow in disquieting horror "Rosemary's Baby".
Then came the models hinting at liberation and freedom in fluorescent tie-dye circle skirts, cashmere sweaters with peepholes opening above the breast area and dressshirts with sheer panels.
Large black sequins spread like a malevolent virus on some of the prints, erasing the details or covering up images of naked people.
The closing designs vaguely evoked in their silhouettes Balenciaga's more famous baby doll dresses, but they looked more functional, recombining in one dress the liberal and conservative juxtaposition by blending a plain shirt with a more elaborate puffed skirt with a large sequinned floral embrodiery.
Apart from dichotomies there were also fashion anachronisms in this collection: the thick and puffy hairbands covered at times with punk studs seemed indeed hints at the Renaissance (View this photo); the flat sandals borrowed from paintings depicting classical scenes, while the sock pumps (Miuccia's own interpretation of the sock sneaker...) evoked a world of cars and races, speed and fast rhythms.
The collection was accompanied by a new "Prada Invites" collaboration: for the occasion Prada invited globally influential female creatives to design a bag with the company's emblematic nylon fabric.
For this collection Prada called a trio of leading female architects - Cini Boeri, Elizabeth Diller and Kazuyo Sejima.
For the occasion Boeri designed a classic bag, while Diller opted for a sort of vest that can be turned into a bag (or a bag that can be donned as vest).
Sejima came up with a peculiar shoulder bag in black nylon with a series of smaller padded bags in pastel colours attached to it, looking like comforting toys with rather abstract shapes.
As a whole this collection wasn't maybe too interesting for the clothes, but for Prada's approach to the political discourse.
Will Miuccia ever turn her back to fashion to become a politician? Hard to say, but it is worth noticing that her feedback on collections has become more focused on social and political issues in the last few seasons.
Spike Lee and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee sitting in the front row last night represented indeed another contrast with the usual fashion world, conventionally more interested in using celebrities as accessories.
The filmmaker, writer and producer wasn't invited to the show as a brand ambassador or to take selfies like the other influencers, but to take part in a talk linked to "The Black Image Corporation", an exhibition (at Prada's Osservatorio until 14th January 2019) about the legacy of the Johnson Publishing Company and the way the images in its archives (by photographers Moneta Sleet Jr. and Isaac Sutton) have helped shaping the aesthetic and cultural languages of the contemporary African American identity.
