Let’s admit it: the screens of the devices we use on a daily basis - computers, tablets, smartphones - are simply magnetic. We have hundreds of things to do in our lives, but then, suddenly, during a break, we pick up the phone, go on Instagram and a whole world unravels in front of our eyes (while the day inevitably goes by).
We decide we can enter the other side of the mirror like Alice did (because our chores can wait...), and suddenly we visit extraordinary holiday locations, discover the most perfect dishes and get jealous about other people's cats that seem capable of fantastic feats while our own pet has been plotting our death since it moved in with us. And then there's fashion. Ah, fashion! There are the most extravagant, bizarre and amazing creations. Gigantic and monumental, in bright colours or in the darkest shades, covered in millions of sequins and multi-coloured crystals, they usually assault our senses, surprising us and leaving us at a loss for words.
That moment when we are at a loss for words is exactly when we should peel off our eyes from the smartphone screen, switch our device off and start thinking.
Yes, fashion can be a mere act of extravagance: you don't need a purpose behind a dress, you don't need to explain to anybody why you used millions of crystals or a particularly bright colour in your collection. Besides, not all fashion designs hide metaphors, symbols and obscure concepts behind them.
That said it looks like nowadays many young designers tend to favour extreme designs with grand shapes not because they believe in what they are doing, but because they know that, posted on social media and especially on Instagram, these showpieces will guarantee immediate media revenue, and may translate into jobs and collaborations.
We have seen such monumentally extravagant designs at the beginning of September, during New York Fashion Week. On Area's runway there were plenty of bedazzling pieces, gowns made with folded pyramid-shaped origamis (that at times looked unfinished, as if the effort of completing them was too much) and two complex cage dresses made with bands of Japanese selvedge denim covered in huge spikes. In the history of fashion there are other spiked dresses with very different meanings and with some architectural connections, but in this case the spikes called to mind the weapons of robot anime from the '80s.
Area's Piotrek Panszczyk actually showed more wearable denim dresses inspired by these ones in the rest of the collection. Yet it was the brand's presence on social media that won it a collaboration with Sergio Rossi that materialised on this runway with sandals decorated with one massive spike (not to be recommended to those readers who, like me, are prone to accidents as getting stabbed to death by the decorative element of your high heeled strappy sandal during a terrible fall would be rather unfortunate and, let's face it, very annoying...).
Elsewhere, on the eve of London Fashion Week, Harris Reed, known for his gender-fluid demi-couture, showcased his collection off-schedule.
His Debutante Ball-themed show inspired by Victorian crinolines and drag clubs in New York, featured Adam Lambert singing "Nessun Dorma", and several designs matched with 3 metre wide cartwheel head pieces or incorporating in the gown 3 metre wide structures.
Suspended between the epic and the perilously unwearable yet immediately Instagrammable, some of the designs also looked as if they were made with metres and metres of fabric knotted and wrapped up around the body, while the bride closing the show carrying a bouquet of Lily of the Valley (a reference to the favourite flowers of the late Queen Elizabeth II) walked with an uncertain and rather graceless step (was it the fault of the shoes or of the large headdress? We will never know).
Reed, 26, emerged like you do these times - online, debuting his gender-fluid Graduation Collection on Instagram (where Harry Styles' stylist Harry Lambert also discovered Reed in 2017), while in lockdown in May 2020. The designer, who has also modelled for Gucci, may have more talent for costumes (something he may have naturally taken from his father's links with Hollywood, he is indeed the son of the Oscar-winning movie producer Nick Reed) than for Haute Couture, but he has just been chosen as the new creative director of Nina Ricci.
The decision makes you think: Alexander McQueen was able to come up with extraordinary designs because he had a solid foundation built during the years he worked with Savile Row tailoring houses. Nowadays, if you know your way around social media and look good, they may give you a historical house to run even if you're more versed in the art of the glue gun than in the art of Savile Row.
There's an epic task ahead of Reed: founded in 1932 and controlled at the moment by Spanish group Puig, Nina Ricci is one of those establishments that seems to have metaphorical revolving doors. In the last few years, many tried to revamp the brand as creative directors and failed miserably, among them Guillaume Henry, Peter Copping, Nathalie Gervais, Massimo Giussani, James Aguiar, Lars Nilsson and Olivier Theyskens.
In this case both Reed and Nina Ricci will have to prove something: Reed that he deserves the job and the French house that their decision was based on the talent and potential they spotted in Reed and not on Launchmetrics' Media Impact Value™ (MIV®) algorithmic suggestions.
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