Friday, January 17, 2020

BEAUTY: Clothing--Études

For their Fall-Winter '20-'21 collection at Paris Fashion Week, design collective Études showed that inspiration can come from nearly anywhere. But this seemingly random mash up of sci-fi elements has a deeper meaning...

The co-founders of Études on this collection: "The idea was to start with science fiction and the future and try to create a contemporary collection that tells a new story," said Aurélien Arbet. "They’re two different visions of the future—one’s utopian, the other dystopian. In 2020 we can consider that we’re living in this imagined era," added Jérémie Egry. And this science fiction took the form of the unlikely pairing of two films, "La Plenete Sauvage" and "Terminator 2: Judgement Day."

We all know about Arnold and the "Terminator" series of films. But the second reference is to "La Planete Sauvage" which was released in English as "Fantastic Planet," an animated French film released in 1973. In it, we witness a race of large blue, red-bug-eyed aliens who keep tiny humans as pets. I saw it in the mid 1970s at a midnight showing, and it is fascinating and frightening, full of inexplicable alien technology, culture, and rituals. But then add in the remaining visuals from this collection--silver-coated outerwear, a re-designed Yin-Yang symbol that includes a third node (ponder that one!), and heat maps of hurricanes and our planet--and we come away with a dystopian narrative the includes climate catastrophe, global transformation, human evolution, and the possibility that the only sentient beings on the planet could end up being AI creatures. Welcome to the future. It starts now.



Here is a trailer for "Fantastic Planet."



I especially love Études' nod to the alien clothing in their very first look...scroll back up and compare.


https://www.etudes-studio.com/

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