2015 AD, the year of a great exodus. In a flurry of rebranding, the biggest ripples are being cast by Gucci successor Alessandro Michele who is slowly being groomed as fashion’s Golden Boy. But it’s an aesthetic that tells you just how to be kooky…
The meteoric fame of Iris Apfel comes to mind; the woman’s virtuoso is undoubted (and would be fiercely defended by many), but anyone familiar with her style, philosophy and work methods knows that she never set out to be an icon in the fashion world. An industry seemingly nauseated by its own yawn-inducing predictability, the mainstream recognition of such a character is almost a shame; indeed, she is a treasure better to have been kept in it’s vault. And the reason? We wretched piranhas cannot resist the ambush of a prey so irresistibly unassuming in its uniqueness. There no longer exists such a thing as rose-tinted glasses. Fashion sees dull green and merely beckons at our pockets. We turn the original into a commodity, throw some glitter on it and call it a trend.
“We turn the original into a commodity, throw some glitter on it and call it a trend”
Though even greater heresies proclaim the coming of a ‘Revolution’. I sadly refer to Tim Blanks’ chorus of praises for the Italian designer published on Business of Fashion. In his article entitled ‘The Gorgeous and The Sinister at Gucci’, the word ‘obsess’ appears no less than four times. A smile crosses my lips; I too claimed ‘obsession’ to justify buying a band shirt as a naïve adolescent, when really my claim to such passions only required the memorisation of a few key song titles (love you, Axl Rose!) These obsessions validate the ‘beauty and madness’ of Michele’s creations, apparently.
I am increasingly persuaded that the ever blunted critical voices of key editors and authority figures in the industry can be attributed to the junkie-like enthralment with their own newly acquired celebrity status, still flying high from the self-importance bestowed upon them by social media. If only they would put the needle down, and pick the pen back up. Though truthfully, we laymen too long for this kind of sedation. Fashion is the last industry to surrender its integrity and our visionaries are an endangered species. We worship at the altar of cosmetically enlarged glutei maximi and look up to teenagers as style idols. ‘Supermodels’ are a dime a dozen…
Hedi’s lucrative piece-meal style is gaining pace; accessibility has deteriorated into the banal. Forced eccentricity is the design equivalent of finger-painting and creative election is reduced to a game of whack-a-mole. To quote a yet-cannibalised Mugatu, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here.
Amrit Santos
Credits: Flickr/steve wassel, Indigital via vogue.co.uk, awkwardsloth11.tumblr.com
