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S/S 2018 FASHION WEEK RAMBLINGS – PART 1: THE SHOWS
by Eugene Rabkin
Paris was sweltering as my plane landed, and the city’s continuing unbelief in air-conditioning has put a damper on everything. Mercifully, my first show, Haider Ackermann, was held in the well-ventilated grand ballroom of the InterContinental hotel. The almost oppressively opulent setting was a good match for a collection that pulled Haider further into his fantasy world, in which everyone seems to do nothing but lounge in expensive hotel rooms wearing expensive, flowing clothes that in lesser hands could be mere pajamas. But Ackermann is a talented designer, and he usually knows how to elevate his clothes through color, ornament, and just enough structure to give them a dose of reality. Sadly, not this time, as we were treated to an overload of stripes, harem pants, and an (actually refreshing) injection of lilac, which veered squarely into unreality. They lacked the edge that is usually present in Ackermann’s clothes. And though the fractured patterns Ackermann showed might have meant to represent our fragile souls as mere ruins covered by silk and cashmere, their louche luxury was so overwhelming that they failed to move me.
The fact that the clothes were showed on young willowy boys added to the cognitive dissonance. It would behoove the collection to be modeled by male equivalents of Tilda Swinton (is that possible?). Of course, one of the fundamental paradoxes of fashion is that runway clothes are modeled by those who rarely can afford them, and certainly today a minority of Western youths can. But perhaps Ackermann is (unwittingly?) targeting the nouveau riche of the Middle East and Asia? It’s hard to tell.
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by Eugene Rabkin
Paris was sweltering as my plane landed, and the city’s continuing unbelief in air-conditioning has put a damper on everything. Mercifully, my first show, Haider Ackermann, was held in the well-ventilated grand ballroom of the InterContinental hotel. The almost oppressively opulent setting was a good match for a collection that pulled Haider further into his fantasy world, in which everyone seems to do nothing but lounge in expensive hotel rooms wearing expensive, flowing clothes that in lesser hands could be mere pajamas. But Ackermann is a talented designer, and he usually knows how to elevate his clothes through color, ornament, and just enough structure to give them a dose of reality. Sadly, not this time, as we were treated to an overload of stripes, harem pants, and an (actually refreshing) injection of lilac, which veered squarely into unreality. They lacked the edge that is usually present in Ackermann’s clothes. And though the fractured patterns Ackermann showed might have meant to represent our fragile souls as mere ruins covered by silk and cashmere, their louche luxury was so overwhelming that they failed to move me.
The fact that the clothes were showed on young willowy boys added to the cognitive dissonance. It would behoove the collection to be modeled by male equivalents of Tilda Swinton (is that possible?). Of course, one of the fundamental paradoxes of fashion is that runway clothes are modeled by those who rarely can afford them, and certainly today a minority of Western youths can. But perhaps Ackermann is (unwittingly?) targeting the nouveau riche of the Middle East and Asia? It’s hard to tell.
Continue here
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