It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was Spring-Summer 2020 ‘Womenswear’ Fashion Month! Pretty much every show was co-ed. New York felt very much alive this season - until everyone got steamrollered by Team Fenty. Milan stole the global spotlight for once (with the help of a single throwback gown) while the Parisians only took a break from glaring at tourists with disdain to discuss Jacques Chirac and Chanel’s Gigi ‘The Bouncer’ Hadid. Closing out the month, Kerby Jean-Raymond spoke truth to power, delivering the most poignant moment of the bunch. On the whole, it appears fashion decided to have a bit of fun again this season! You’d smile wistfully at that, but then you realize all of this is a massive waste of resources fuelling one of the most polluting industries globally. Cognitive dissonance, it’s a lifestyle. Now let’s get to it!
PYER MOSS
Pyer Moss (pronounced ‘Pierre’, as we now know for sure) has steadily built the kind of community most labels could merely daydream of. Casting mostly through IG (but also including Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin) and making sure 500 seats at the King’s Theater in Brooklyn went to fans for free, Kerby Jean-Raymond made ‘Collection 3’ about the music. The ‘Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir Drenched in the Blood’ sent every reveller’s skin into goosebump mode and the collection dedicated to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the queer black woman who actually invented rock and roll, referenced her music from guitar silhouette lapels to gospel choir cut gowns and instrument-shaped bags. “I wanted to explore what that aesthetic might have looked like if her story would have been told” Jean-Raymond shared with Vogue. The opening words by writer Casey Gerald laid bare the essence of the show: “Four hundred years have passed since they brought our people to this land… and I’ve come here to say you can’t hurt us no more”. Collabs included artwork by artist Richard Phillips, who was exonerated after spending 45 years in prison and footwear by Aurora James of Brother Vellies. After brightly opening fashion month, Jean-Raymond heralded the season’s swan song by penning a most powerful statement on diversity, long-term exploitation and hollow activism after returning from the BoF500 gala. Please take a moment to read his thoughts here.
What to say about the new Dries? The “but wow, what a moment” Whitney meme springs to mind. Dries Van Noten SS20 prompted conflagrations of AbFab quotes from the press, as the feted Antwerp designer worked with Christian Lacroix for the occasion. Why? Because it felt just right. “The most challenging part (of this collaboration was) not to lose myself in the fun, but then (also) not forgetting that there most be enough fun in this collection”, said Dries. “It was like trying to find the right dose of ‘too much’.” To which Lacroix quipped: “As a teenager, my motto was ‘too much is never enough.” Yin and Yang are shaking, it’s Dries and Christian who formed a wholly unexpected, mutually beneficial friendship and provided fashion with a source of unfettered fun by sending out look after look serving eighties- and nineties-inspired neo-couture. The audience’s joy lay in trying to pin one of the designers to a specific frill or moment of restraint in the garments: minimal vests and sweatshirts (Dries!), jet beading (Lacroix!), floral suits (Dries!), richly embroidered brocade jackets (LaDries?). The endless ribbons, floating fuchsia opera coat, marabou bangs and feather headdresses, taffeta puffed sleeves and trains, animal prints and platform boots, giant polka dots, flamenco skirts were like Pierre Hermé treats for the eyes. Indulgence materialised, pretty much.
You know you’re in for a high-energy show when Telfar Clemens is at the wheel. Founded almost 15 years ago, Telfar the label has become a fashion highlight and mainstay at this point (with a little help from its cult shopping bag). For SS20, Clemens brought his label to Paris and created and projected a short film for the occasion - starring and written by ‘Slave Play’ breakout writer Jeremy O. Harris featuring Ashton Sanders, BBYMUTHA, Steve Lacy, Arca and so many more. Titled ‘The World Isn’t Everything’, the collection was apparently inspired by airport security line checks (often an unpleasant experience singling out people of colour). We’re talking signature cargo pants, Jamaican tricolore string tops and dresses, thigh-hole joggers, Budweiser logos, chopped and spliced trousers and TC logo details in placed most would fail to look (gilding a model’s tooth via grill, for instance). Clemens also debuted an all-new Converse footwear collaboration, further preening the brand for longevity.
It’s Meta-sace. By now you most likely know that Jennifer Lopez’ south-of-the-navel February 2000 Grammy’s dress spurred the creation of Google Images. Twenty years later, booming via fashion show speakers after the proper spon con incentives were signed, Donatella Versace “Okay Google’d” an instruction to release JenPez (shout-out to Karen Walker) for a victory lap in the swooshy green and aquamarine leaf print dress that started it all. The ‘gram and your newsfeeds seized up immediately, overshadowing the black and gold boxy looks that actually made up the new collection but spinning marketing gold from each double tap. Team Versace knows how to stay upright and relevant when the ground underneath them shifts dramatically (from murder to mergers), a feat demanding respect from a business point of view. Also, now we know, on weekdays we shroud ourselves in black, on weekends we shut it down in a gown.
It was his talent that mainly redeemed John Galliano, and rarely have we seen a designer make use of a second chance with more gusto. Maison Margiela ‘Artisanal’ SS20 carried a message of hope, remembrance and liberation. “As we witness the very breakdown of the moral fibre of society, as we witness the trivialization of democracy, or the European Union. Isn’t this what they fought for, for peace?” mused Galliano on the Margiela podcast. Inspired by women like Edith Cavell - the British resistance nurse executed by the Germans in Belgium - and inventor Marie Curie, the show paired pinstripe tailoring and nurse’s caps and aprons with contemporary slashed jeans and laser hole punching serving as industrialised polka dots. Weathered tweed and twill prints imposed on light cotton fabrics played with Margiela house codes of trompe l’oeil and digital glitches played hide seek with the real garment underneath, complimented by abstracted accessories. If only for the beguiling viral walk of model Leon Dame, the show stood out.
(c) Getty
The ‘Victoria’s Secret found dead in a ditch’ tweets blew GIPHY’s servers out, I’m sure. Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty lingerie extravaganza was one for the ages and simultaneously uniquely of today. Inclusive, representative, beautiful, sensual. We got to see Ms. Fenty herself perform. Normani did what Normani does best, gather scalp follicles. A joy and true fashion meauxment. (Find out here where to watch the Amazon exclusive video footage).
(c) Getty
(c) Getty
No Sesso Founder Pierre Davis and her co-director Arin Hayes further widened the scope of the No Sesso label with an exuberant and vivacious new collection, titled “I'd Rather Rescue Myself”. After a troubling incident at a Pride event earlier this year where both Davis and her stylist were harmed, the show felt like a proclamation of renewed life. Following extensive Insta-casting, the runway was populated by people of colour of all gender identities and body shapes. “This show is dedicated to every BLACK trans sister who has walked this earth, dead or alive. “I’d Rather Rescue Myself” is for US. If you know, you know. EVERY BLACK FEMME ON PERIOD”, Davis wrote in a statement. Moving the needle from the label’s usual high-concept pieces, often one of a kind, SS20 geared towards scalability and increased daily wearability – by releasing airbrushed tees, logo two-pieces and boxy jackets down the catwalk. The No Sesso signature superhero motif paired with the neon logo visors, logo templates sprayed onto the models’ hairdos and hand-dyed oversize ensembles felt like an affirming disclaimer of presence. No Sesso is to be known worldwide, seems to be the motto, and you can only wish the trailblazing label well.
After the news broke that Demna Gvasalia had officially exited Vetements, most of fashion’s tiny sunglass-shrouded eyes trained on Balenciaga in Paris. The show, supposedly both an ‘ode to working people’ and ‘inspired by the style of Angela Merkel’, did not fall short. Like tumbling through the blue centre of a European Union flag, the expansive curtained set did not swallow the models but allowed the clothes to flash even brighter. Show notes revealed the backgrounds of a traditionally untraditional cast of professionals including a doctor, an architect, a mechanical engineer, entrepreneurs as well ‘regular’ model pros in Born This Way-esque cheek prosthetics and inflated lips by Alexis Kinebanyan. The understated make-up looks created by master Inge Grognard flowed in unison with the eeriness of these sculpted faces. Obliterating the notion of power dressing, SS20 Balenciaga served up boxier shoulders and bulkier technical coats than already previously established by the label. Cynical logo tees (including an ANTM shout-out), chin-to-floor length print dresses and double denim get-ups were to be expected but the eveningwear truly rose to the occasion. Gargantuan bows and a pouf of silver and gold lamé appeared, only to be outdone by a sequence of velvet globular ballroom gowns with removable crinoline hoops that – once deflated – should reveal A-line ‘gothic’ dresses. “This is what I feel my mission is about at Balenciaga, to continue experimenting with volume”, Gvasalia told WWD. I for one am ready for the crank-up.
When Rei Kawakubo shows out, she takes no prisoners. SS20 was a continuation on a theme (which Comme des Garçons rarely posits or explains), first established during the CdG men’s shows in June. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s 1928 classic novel ‘Orlando: A Biography’, the second act shown in Paris was embroidered upon haute couture fabrics and rich brocades on Elizabethan proportions, passing by 3D logomanic fringes only to steadily shift towards a blackened and eerie (sometimes hairy) narrative. The third part of this storyline will be debuting via stage costumes at the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna come December, for the premiere of ‘Orlando’ - Olga Neuwirth’s operatic adaptation of the feminist classic.
Read the KNOTORYUS Best of Menswear Month SS20 here
All images unless specified: (c) Vogue Runway
