by Eugene Rabkin
"It seems somewhat silly to write about fashion these days, given the disgraceful political situation in the US, and I’ve probably had more conversations about the Orangutan in the Oval Office than about fashion proper over the week I spent in Paris. But, write I must, and so here are my impressions of a season that was mostly flat and that made me think that menswear is just spinning its wheels. There were a couple of marketing exercises so obviously aimed at creating hype that they felt more forced than clever. The smaller of these were Demna Gvasalia putting a simple white hoody with a Kering logo on the Balenciaga runway. Kering is the luxury conglomerate that owns Balenciaga, Gucci, an YSL, among others. In a clearly orchestrated PR move Gvasalia explained to Business of Fashion why he put the logo of his employers on the hoodie that had zero design merit otherwise. He blabbered on about logos no longer meaning anything, and how artsy it all is. But a logo is a symbol and symbols have meaning, and Gvasalia’s PR contortions don’t make it otherwise. And a Kering logo is a symbol of a powerful corporation that pays Gvasalia to put its logo on a sweatshirt.
Then there was the Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration that Kim Jones unveiled for the LV men’s collection. Or is it Louis Vuitton x Supreme? Because these things matter, since I don’t know a single person who buys Louis Vuitton menswear, and I doubt that you do. This was clearly a feat of accomplishment for Louis Vuitton to bring some attention to Jones’s work, but I struggle to think how Supreme would benefit from this except financially. For anyone who is not a fuccboi or who possesses more than two brain cells, it should be obvious what Louis Vuitton the brand is - a housewife’s dream, a status symbol of the bourgeoisie. That Supreme as a brand has stood against this for more than twenty years seemed to be on no one’s mind. I mean, someone at Supreme must have sat at a round table and agreed that this was a good idea. By right this label should be losing half of its street cred right about now, but of course none of the sort will happen. With this collaboration Supreme told everyone that it thinks it can do no wrong, that they know that the consumer sheep will line up for anything with Supreme logo on it. Much has been said lately about how the fashion consumer today has become smart. But the fashion consumer continues to be as dumb as ever. He has become savvy about shopping, sure, but that is very different from being able to string together a few thoughts about what it is exactly he is buying.
As for the rest of shows I saw (or didn’t), sadly there is not that much to write home or to you about. I began with Haider Ackermann’s show last Wednesday night, which to me seemed simultaneously too little and too much. Too little because I saw little innovation in his cuts, and too much because each garment seemed to have that one extra design element that was unnecessary. Ackermann usually knows perfectly well when to stop, but this time he did not. He seemed to have left all his reserve for his debut at Berluti, which was fantastically elegant, and in my other life, one where I would live in some grand house in Milan doing nothing in particular, would turn me into a Berluti customer stat.
Next morning I began with Rick Owens, and whereas the last two seasons of him going bonkers with volume and maximalism left me indifferent, there was something about this show that felt right. You had to be there to be swept away by the elegiac music, the slowly moving models who carried all that oversized mess with unprecedented dignity. With this show Owens continued his wearability-be-damned march. In the showroom there were some wearable pieces that will make your wallet cower in fear, but it’s exactly the kind of thing for which you build a cult."
Read the rest of the article here.
"It seems somewhat silly to write about fashion these days, given the disgraceful political situation in the US, and I’ve probably had more conversations about the Orangutan in the Oval Office than about fashion proper over the week I spent in Paris. But, write I must, and so here are my impressions of a season that was mostly flat and that made me think that menswear is just spinning its wheels. There were a couple of marketing exercises so obviously aimed at creating hype that they felt more forced than clever. The smaller of these were Demna Gvasalia putting a simple white hoody with a Kering logo on the Balenciaga runway. Kering is the luxury conglomerate that owns Balenciaga, Gucci, an YSL, among others. In a clearly orchestrated PR move Gvasalia explained to Business of Fashion why he put the logo of his employers on the hoodie that had zero design merit otherwise. He blabbered on about logos no longer meaning anything, and how artsy it all is. But a logo is a symbol and symbols have meaning, and Gvasalia’s PR contortions don’t make it otherwise. And a Kering logo is a symbol of a powerful corporation that pays Gvasalia to put its logo on a sweatshirt.
Then there was the Supreme x Louis Vuitton collaboration that Kim Jones unveiled for the LV men’s collection. Or is it Louis Vuitton x Supreme? Because these things matter, since I don’t know a single person who buys Louis Vuitton menswear, and I doubt that you do. This was clearly a feat of accomplishment for Louis Vuitton to bring some attention to Jones’s work, but I struggle to think how Supreme would benefit from this except financially. For anyone who is not a fuccboi or who possesses more than two brain cells, it should be obvious what Louis Vuitton the brand is - a housewife’s dream, a status symbol of the bourgeoisie. That Supreme as a brand has stood against this for more than twenty years seemed to be on no one’s mind. I mean, someone at Supreme must have sat at a round table and agreed that this was a good idea. By right this label should be losing half of its street cred right about now, but of course none of the sort will happen. With this collaboration Supreme told everyone that it thinks it can do no wrong, that they know that the consumer sheep will line up for anything with Supreme logo on it. Much has been said lately about how the fashion consumer today has become smart. But the fashion consumer continues to be as dumb as ever. He has become savvy about shopping, sure, but that is very different from being able to string together a few thoughts about what it is exactly he is buying.
As for the rest of shows I saw (or didn’t), sadly there is not that much to write home or to you about. I began with Haider Ackermann’s show last Wednesday night, which to me seemed simultaneously too little and too much. Too little because I saw little innovation in his cuts, and too much because each garment seemed to have that one extra design element that was unnecessary. Ackermann usually knows perfectly well when to stop, but this time he did not. He seemed to have left all his reserve for his debut at Berluti, which was fantastically elegant, and in my other life, one where I would live in some grand house in Milan doing nothing in particular, would turn me into a Berluti customer stat.
Next morning I began with Rick Owens, and whereas the last two seasons of him going bonkers with volume and maximalism left me indifferent, there was something about this show that felt right. You had to be there to be swept away by the elegiac music, the slowly moving models who carried all that oversized mess with unprecedented dignity. With this show Owens continued his wearability-be-damned march. In the showroom there were some wearable pieces that will make your wallet cower in fear, but it’s exactly the kind of thing for which you build a cult."
Read the rest of the article here.
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