Eccentric fashion designers defy parody
(Reuters)Updated: 2007-02-27 16:08
A model presents an ensemble as part of the Fall-Winter 2007/2008, ready to wear collection by Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, in Paris Monday Feb. 26, 2007.[Reuters]
PARIS - Movie satires on the fashion industry generally miss the mark for a simple reason: even the wildest spoof pales in comparison to the real-life antics of eccentric designers.
Models carrying scaffolding, dresses worn backward and revolving crinoline skirts were just some of the ideas showcased in Paris on Monday.Dutch duo Viktor & Rolf started from the premise that each model should be a self-contained fashion show, so they made them carry individual metal cages rigged with spotlights and speakers piping out a different tune for each dress.
"They were like small Viktor & Rolf microcosms," said Viktor Horsting, flanked by his twin-like design partner Rolf Snoeren.
The skirt of a floral-patterned dress was pinned to its metal frame to show off a tasseled hem lined with electric lights. Huge collars were draped across the cages to create a picturesque frame for the face.
Never mind that the models could hardly walk in their deathtrap ensembles: Horsting said he was not afraid the presentation would detract from the clothes.
"That is exactly what we wanted to address, to incorporate the show and the performance of the show into the actual garments, so that the show becomes the clothes and the clothes become the show," he told The Associated Press after the show.
To balance out the technical wizardry, Viktor & Rolf went back to their roots with folkloric touches like mixed prints, pleated shoulders and yellow wooden clogs.
Incredible as it seems, there is mileage in this footwear, as evidenced by the popularity in the U.S. of the plastic clogs made by Crocs.
It is always hard to assess where irony ends and serious experimentation begins, especially with someone as subtly humorous as Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.
When he first showed his austere black clothes in Paris in 1981, he was met with stares of incomprehension. A decade later, his minimalist designs had become the uniform of the fashion community.
So when Yamamoto sent out models on Monday plastered in a logo consisting of his initials, surrounded by diamonds and circles strangely reminiscent of the famed Louis Vuitton monogram, it appeared like a wry comment on consumerist tendencies.
The theme of his autumn-winter collection could be summed up as "flamenco dancer meets biker gang." That translated into ruffled black dresses layered over men's trousers and paired with cropped leather bolero jackets and Doc Martens boots.
A wave of applause greeted a sequence of polka-dotted lampshade skirts that mechanically spun around.
Conceptual designers make easy target for mainstream critics, but experts say their lack of inhibition drives fashion forward.
None is more daring than Martin Margiela, the subject of an exhibition at trendy Milan boutique 10 Corso Como that showcases past creations like a jacket made from wigs turned inside out and a waistcoat wired together from broken porcelain dishes.
The Belgian designer's display, staged in a tent opposite the Eiffel Tower, opened with T-shirts with football-style shoulderpads that contrasted with a narrow lower half.
Boxy capes came without sleeves and a fluorescent pink halter dress was worn back to front.
"It was amazing, very futuristic," edgy Italian actress Asia Argento said after the show.
Margiela is all the more intriguing for refusing to give interviews and never appearing in public. At the end of the show, dozens of staffers in white laboratory coats took a collective bow.
Hilary Alexander, fashion editor of Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, compared the designer to the reclusive U.S. billionaire Howard Hughes.
"I'm convinced he is one of these people in the white coats mingling secretly amongst us and enjoying the irony of the fact that he knows who we are, but we haven't a clue who he is," she said.
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