Designs featuring plush toys are nothing new. Consider Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's iconic "Arche de Noé" teddy bear coat from the A/W 1988-89 collection, famously worn by Madonna and later by Helena Christensen in Robert Altman's film "Pret-A-Porter" (1994).
That same season, Moschino introduced a less extravagant but equally cozy teddy bear coat with teddy bears placed along the neckline, paired with a towering headdress made of cute teddy bears (the idea was later borrowed again by Jeremy Scott for Moschino's S/S 2014 collection).
When we look at the history of fashion, plush toy designs often involve clusters of small to mid-sized soft toys. This concept of aggregation is also embraced by interior designers.
Felicia Hansen's "Teddy Vessels (Also Known As Our Former Best Friends, 2022)" exemplifies this approach - vessels crafted from assemblages of discarded stuffed toys.
These colorful vases and sculptural objects are a testament to how post-consumer waste can be transformed into unique and playful design pieces. The vases show us that, even though we may have grown up, stuffed animals can still find a place in our homes if given a second life.
More recently, designers have explored recycling larger toys or creating garments with patterns of oversized plush animals.
Venla Elonsalo, a finalist at the 2021 Hyères Festival, for example, incorporated large plush toys into her designs.
Last year, while playing with Midjourney, I envisioned a playful and imaginative collection inspired by the whimsical world of claw machines and the vibrant colors of soft toys and plastic figurines from gashapon vending machines. My goal was to create designs that captured the carefree spirit of childhood fun.
The collection was meant to be joyful, rich in sensory stimuli, and filled with textile and surface embellishments. I wanted it to feature soft elements reminiscent of plush toys, but also include other items like hard plastic figurines or snacks and candies often found in claw machines.
Some of the first creations the popular Artificial Intelligence (AI) text-to-image generator created featured models surrounded by piles of plush toys or wearing designs incorporating them. While this wasn't the exact effect I was aiming for, it served as a useful starting point.
At Copenhagen Fashion Week, the idea of using plush toys in fashion made a nostalgic return with a coat and bra crafted from an assemblage of cuddly toys. These pieces were part of a collection showcased earlier this week during the fashion event, designed by (di)vision, a multidisciplinary brand and design studio founded by siblings Nanna and Simon Wick in late 2018.
Known for their colorful and playful approach to fashion, (di)vision specializes in sustainable design practices, including reconstructing, upcycling, cut-and-sew production, and creative sourcing. Their ethos revolves around creating from what already exists, exploring the possibilities of producing clothes from deadstock, recycled fabrics, vintage goods, and upcycled overstock.
The collection showcased in Copenhagen, entitled "The Dream of Steam City" (S/S 25), presented an eclectic mix of genderless designs and upcycled pieces. Inspired by urban maximalism and video games, it blended fairy grunge with Tokyo fashion nostalgia. The collection's visual impact relied heavily on layering and upcycling, with animal prints, plaid, and 2000s-inspired accessories.
The title of the collection hinted at an imaginary utopian place where pollution is replaced by the freshness of mountain dew. In Steam City, everything is made from pre-existing objects, and people recycle materials to create new things, such as belts made from nostalgic memorabilia, or a coat fashioned from old teddy bears. The goal of "The Dream of Steam City" collection for the design duo is to imagine alternative worlds that might exist if we embraced a different way of life.
And so, the story of the teddy bear coat - created by humans, accidentally remixed by AI, and re-imagined by a younger generation of fashion designers - continues.
Yet when we talk about plush toys re-used in a creative way, Charlemagne Palestine's installations of multi-colored soft toys also come to mind. In this case the stuffed toys are conceived by the artist as shamanic representations of the soul, directly linked to the teddy bear's invention in 1902 by an immigrant Jewish couple - Morris and Rose Michtom - in the same Brooklyn neighborhood where Palestine was born.
For the artist, the teddy bear’s invention is an obsession, a lens through which to explore childhood memories, melancholy, longing, and loss. After all, these soft objects metaphorically soothe the painful aspects of life, offering a sense of comfort and happiness.
In the end, isn’t that what we all crave? A bit of comfort, a touch of happiness? So, bring on the plush toy coat, it's more than just fashion; it’s a soft, gentle and enveloping hug, and, sometimes, that’s exactly what we all need in our lives.
Comments