The fashion industry always strives to be ahead of the curve; its greatest skill consists in being able to identify a product that people may like, manufacture it and impose it upon consumers. But you get the impression that, at the moment, something is shifting and the industry is not completely realizing it, at least at luxury level.
Instagram is still ruling supreme: in a runway show you must have the visually striking look, the mesmerizing accessory and the amazing performance that will help you going instantly viral. Yet some designers have started moving away from extreme theatrical fashion shows to let their clothes speak.
Besides, there are other platforms where the fashion discourse is continuing or where it is taking other directions. Influencers established solid relationships with the brands that feed them to the point that, while the creative director cyclically goes out of the proverbial revolving door, they firmly remain seated in the front row ready to swear allegiance to whoever’s on next; TikTokers do not seem afraid instead of telling the truth about buying an original designer piece online and then, once they get it, of expressing all their frustration and disappointment about its quality in videos that often become viral.
So, for a while now the fashion discourse has been moving on, mutating, merging with innovative technologies and Artificial Intelligence and reaching unlikely places and platforms such as Reddit and Discord. Among the designers that are often mentioned and reviewed in such communities there is Willie Norris.
The trans American fashion designer, artist, performer and model, presented her first solo runway collection in June 2019 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village with an all queer cast that also included Aaron Rose Philip, the first Black, transgender, disabled model to be represented by a major modeling agency.
Currently catering to her LGBTQ+ fans through pro-queer streetwear, creations made from deadstock fabric and designs that defy conventional gender norms via her Willie Norris Workshop that allows her to release cothing outside the fashion calendar (besides, Norris offers a special service in her New York atelier where people can bring garments they care about and ask the designer to reinvent them), Norris is also Design Director of the Brooklyn-based brand Outlier. Founded in 2008 by Abe Burmeister and Tyler Clemens, Outlier is known for its durable clothing inspired by workwear and made with extra-strong materials.
One of the collections Norris designed for the label was showcased on the Outlier Discord chat. It featured a photo shoot of looks in which models walked on a small stationary treadmill Norris bought on Amazon (a metaphorical reference to the runway as a place of energy) with the photos released into the Discord chat, one every 30 seconds.
Norris doesn't divide her collections for Outlier into seasons, but into "Ideas". The term goes well with fashion as, originating from the Greek verb ἰδεῖν "to see" or “to know”, indicating a form, shape, or appearance, it emphasises the "visual aspect" of things. An idea is also an archetype, the perfect form a thing can take.
Hence, it could be said that Norris’ collections for Outlier are combinations of archetypes, usually inspired by workwear, and featuring genderless designs that lean more towards menswear. Norris is actually more preoccupied with designing for a wide range of body types with varying heights and weights and, to this end, she also came up with designs such as bomber jackets and trousers without shoulder and side seams, a trick designed to flatter different body types.
Norris is also worried about sustainability and developed for her previous "Ideas" series natural floral dyes with floral designer Ian Allen Greer.
In her Ideas 4 (S/S 23 in the industry's more conventional season division), Norris moved from Bernard Rudofsky's 1947 essay "Are Clothes Modern?" (download it here) and from his 1964 book "Architecture Without Architects" (download it here) that was based on the eponymous exhibition at NYC MoMA.
In the 1947 essay, Rudofsky questioned the form and function of clothing and in Ideas 4, Norris tried to come up with more inventive solutions, creating T-shirts with strips of magnets on each side seam, that allowed the wearer to create draped motifs or to transform a long shirt into a draped gown. The result was a garment with functionality and a playful twist, something that Norris is keeping on exploring. Besides, Norris is known for what her fans on Discord call "Willie Specials", that is attention to details (such as a hidden pocket or special finishes on the seams that can't be easily noticed online).
The new Ideas series ("Proof") is subdivided in sections: the first one includes utilitarian distressed and overdyed pants and zip hoodies with the wrong-side of the fabric out, donned in the look book by models wearing alien masks inspired by Norris' previous Ideas series that included a collaboration with AI artist Zak Krevitt who turned her models into Artificial Intelligence-generated aliens. Norris is obsessed by the idea of hosting a fashion show on another planet, but her aliens are also a way to embrace otherness. This season, Krevitt's aliens returned as masks that pointed at space adventures in bars located in galaxies far away.
The second section included functional zippered padded bombers, scarves, and ponchos that can be transformed, worn in the look book by models with bandaged limbs hinting at intergalactic surgery tourism.
Plaid blankets were reinvented for the third group into masks, jackets and zip-up shirts; while group four looked at the possibilities offered by multilayered tailoring characterized by allover prints; while the final group included a jacket with a zippered hem and a final alien in a T-shirt dress with the slogan "I left."
Paracord body suits (a reference to Nick Cave's soundsuits?) provided instead dynamic interludes in the collection, hinting at body modifications and bodies in transition, but also revealing us that Norris may one day have a future in costume design, in particular for dance performances.
Norris’ designs are relevant in America at the moment where there is a backlash against the visibility of transgender and non-binary identities and a will to intimidate them, demonizing and eradicating transgenderism (32 bills have been filed in several states such as Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas to mention a few ones, to target drag performances).
Norris' creations and the buzz around Outlier on alternative platforms represent the rise of a vibrant and lively mood in fashion, alternative to the luxury narrative provided by powerful fashion houses and conglomerates.
Yet we are witnessing the rise of the underdog in other fields and industries at the moment: the anarchic and absurdist multiverse-themed comedy-drama "Everything Everywhere All at Once" directed by The Daniels (Directed by Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert) has for example turned into an unlikely contender at tomorrow's Academy Awards.
The story of Evelyn, a woman trapped in the world of laundry and taxes guided by the mantra "every rejection, every disappointment has led you to this moment," this fantasy film presents its antiheroine with an infinite number of alternative possibilities, a narrative out of this world, but with down-to-earth preoccupations and unmistakably human problems - including otherness and belonging, contradictions and confusion - and a final endearing message. In much the same way, Norris represents an alternative possibility in the fashion multiverse, a designer with an alien narrative, catering to all sorts of people with their very human problems and encouraging optimism through fashion.
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