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Photo by Adam Katz Sinding of www.le-21eme.com
Some time ago in Paris at a men’s show of the cult Japanese label Julius I found myself sitting next to the singer Usher. As I was chatting with his companion, Grace, I could not help but wonder what Usher was doing in a dark, cavernous space, looking at the goth aesthetic of black leathers and drapey wools that Tatsuro Horikawa, Julius’s designer, sent down the runway. And, I also wondered, where are the rockers?
The history of rock-and-roll had always seemed inseparable from the history of style. Frank Zappa once pronounced, “No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style.” Until recently this rang true, from the neat suits of the early Beatles to Kurt Cobain’s dowdy cardigans. Rock stars were style stars. Their styles were disparate but they all exhibited a powerful sense of charisma, spawning countless imitators. Punk alone has been a lasting influence; witness the last year’s exhibit at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
But something happened during the last decade. With the rise of indie-rock, rock music has become diffused and tame. Hitherto, rock was the sound of rebellion, but all of a sudden there seemed nothing to rebel against. Hip-hop, on the other hand, still had the aggression of the ghetto, even though in substance it was very quickly moving into the mainstream. It had the energy that few contemporary rock acts could match. Rappers figured out the same thing that rockers figured out before them – rebellion is charisma.
Rock musicians of today are by and large a self-conscious breed. The feeling of grandeur, of exposing yourself emotionally, is largely gone. You can hear it in their music and you can see it in their dress. Rock star style died the day Franz Ferdinand donned Dior Homme suits. When you wear a garment traditionally reserved for the faceless agents of establishment, no amount of post-modernist irony – sartorial irony in this case – can save you, because at the end of the day irony is a defeatist attitude.
Last year, Hedi Slimane, now busy turning Saint-Laurent into another youth and rock-n-roll fantasy, tapped a bunch of rock stars, such as Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, for his ads. The only problem was that every one of those musicians had peaked a decade ago and is not that culturally relevant to most young people today.
Hip-hop stars poured unto the breach left open by rockers in no time. Like it or not, today’s Iggy Pop and David Bowie are Kanye West and A$AP Rocky. If this sounds jarring, it’s because this is a fairly new phenomenon. But I know that when the fashion paparazzi prick up their ears before a fashion show, it’s a rap star making an entrance. These men travel to Paris to see men’s shows – which bespeaks a genuine interest in fashion as an expression of personal style – as opposed to the likes of Mick Jagger, who are dragged to women’s shows as arm candy for their girlfriends. And this January, it wasn’t a rock star I witnessed prowling the racks of the Rick Owens showroom in Paris – it was A$AP Rocky, accompanied by Michele Lamy, Owens’s wife. As we briefly chatted outside the showroom, the rapper seemed completely in his own element. (THE REST IS HERE)
I am merely commenting on what I see. Maybe this will be a wake up call to rockers!
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