Fashion goes round and round in circles and what was fashionable a few decades ago is bound to come back at some point like an undesirable boomerang.
Shot in 1999, “Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore”, a video by British artist Mark Leckey featuring a selection of footage from the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s keeps on resurfacing every now and then like an old fashion trend, inspiring not only artists but also fashion designers.
Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (Mark Leckey) from Anon. on Vimeo.
The video - showing young people dancing in discos and during raves in Great Britain - has a rather mesmerising quality about it.
Its focus on clothes and the culture of collective leisure are two of the main reasons that turned it into a cult piece for different people, Raf Simons included.
In a way, in a world riddled with personal, social and financial crises, and with a fashion industry constantly toying with death-related inspirations (yet refusing to finally die…), it could be considered as almost refreshing referencing artwork chronicling through collaged images and sounds a rite of passage experienced by successive generations of youth and celebrating the liberating freedom of finding yourself in a disorientating space.
Yet Simons didn’t really move from these themes, but tried to inject into Jil Sander’s Spring/Summer 2012 collection a different kind of disorientation caused by mixing various styles from different decades together.
Tailored jackets were paired with baggy pants, shorts (an uncanny amount of shorts in fact…) came in different cuts and materials; crocheted multicoloured jumpers were matched with transparent PVC jackets and trench coats while shiny second-skin coats had the fluid consistency of oil.
The collection mainly revolved around navy, black and dark grey shades, but bright colours appeared every now and then in the snakeskin tops and shoes and in the flat document bags strapped across the chest.
Concise, yet definitely not new and innovative, the collection lacked the unadulterated bliss of nocturnal abandon that characterised Leckey's video, though it also had something in common with it: “Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore” made the viewer realise that the best days of our lives have sadly gone forever, killed by temporary and fast fashion trends.
In a way this Spring/Summer collection was exactly the same, proving that there is a certain tiredness in the creative process and that the "best days" may be really beyond us.
Definitely not immune to the cult of Fiorucci, Dolce & Gabbana claimed this time the collection was inspired by the web and the Internet.
While Domenico Dolce doesn’t like technology, Stefano Gabbana is obsessed with Twitter and this passion became the starting point for the new collection.
Yet, rather than a provocation or a social commentary to the damages caused by a virtual world fostering fake friendships and killing human relationships, D&G’s mesh and net suits, tops, jackets, shoes, shorts and even overalls (think Thayaht’s tuta-meets-Rocco e i suoi fratelli in a superficial kind of way), evoked at times the apocalyptic passion for mesh shirts and tank tops that exploded in the '80s and Madonna’s early looks (which is reasonable in a way since in their latest womenswear collection D&G channelled the “Who’s That Girl?” look...).
The net/mesh effect worked better in the leather jackets, though after a while it proved a bit tiring.
Will the mesh/net effect be echoed also in Dolce & Gabbana's S/S 2012 womenswear collection? Who knows, but if it will, I would like to remind the designers that mesh garments were already fashionable in the '50s and one of the first examples appeared in Giorgio Bianchi's Amor non ho... però... però (Love I Haven't... But... But, 1951), so there's no need of coming up with technological solutions and inspirations to explain mesh tops.
Anyway, so far the Milan menswear catwalk shows have been rather quiet and, after an edition of the Pitti trade fair that wasn't exactly too exciting, you get the impression that the end of the fashion industry may be even nearer than we ever thought.
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