It is somehow always a great coincidence for a fashion designer when the theme that inspired a collection becomes popular around the same time that specific collection is showcased or arrives in the shops. This is more or less what happened with Walter Van Beirendonck who moved from identity for his A/W 13 collection and ended up exploring it via David Bowie, the androgynous master of self-reinvention and a living poetic manifesto to an era.
The singer recently celebrated his 66th birthday surprisingly announcing his first album in years, anticipated by new single "Where Are We Now?". Bowie has been at the forefront of fashion for decades, thanks to his experimental costumes that turned him onto the stage into an icon and an inspiration for many designers, and costumes have been a lot on Walter Van Beirendonck's mind.
The designer has been in a "performance mood" since last year when he collaborated for the first time with the National Opera of Paris’ ballet, designing surrealist costumes for the piece “Sous Apparence”, a tribute to Merce Cunningham with a maverick choreography by the Paris Opera Ballet étoile Marie-Agnès Gillot.
For that piece Walter Van Beirendonck opted for costumes with features such as ropes that seemed to restrain the movements of the dancers. Yet in his menswear collection showcased in Paris this week he freed himself from any kind of constraints, often coming up with over the top glammed up garments.
Ziggy Stardust's iconic flash as photographed by Duffy for the album cover of "Aladdin Sane" was emblazoned in Lurex on blue or pink jackets, while Bowie's eyes returned as disembodied features on a Picasso-style head appliqued on formal jackets.
Glam moods prevailed in the Lurex tops and trousers decorated with metallic tinsel and matched with colourful platform boots and decadent dressing gown-like coats toned done the collectiong completing it.
The designer arty knitwear came in a riot of colourful geometrical patterns and, while it was legitimate to wonder if Giacomo Balla and the Italian Futurists were once again behind those bright shades, the main inspirations were probably Kansai Yamamoto's knitwear pieces for Bowie (did Van Beirendonck see Bowie's knitwear costume by Yamamoto at the V&A “British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age” exhibition last year?).
Yet Vvan Beirendonck's A/W 13 collection wasn't only about Bowie: the red lips on the abstract heads appliqued on the jackets pointed towards another music inspiration, The Rolling Stones, also referenced through a Lurex reinterpretation of Mr Fish's flamboyant white dress donned by Mick Jagger for The Stone's Hyde Park concert in 1969.
While this fashionable space oddity is (fortunately) destined to remain a showpiece and probably reappear on some hip artist during a gig or on the cover of an album, you can bet that, once toned a tiny bit down, some of the moondust covered pieces in this collection (especially the knitwear) will prove bestsellers not just with Bowie fans.
There is just one final question left: what will Bowie - who seems to be in a pensive and introspective mood in his brand new single - think about all this?
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