But there were a few interesting little tidbits, so here are some highlights from the first week of our fashion tour, Fall-Winter '19-'20 London Fashion Week Men's:
For their first stand alone show, Art School (Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt) showed a daring collection that was for and about the LGBTQI community and, much like Charles Jeffrey's Loverboy show (here), featured gender non-binary clothing. I personally think this is an exciting area for fashion to explore, and a likely area as well, since fashion at this level truly can be about societal changes and politics. As I mentioned in my posting about the Loverboy show of this season, all clothing is unisex if you really think about it. Clothing itself has no gender--a piece of clothing is an inanimate object made of fiber or leather or metal, and cannot possess a gender. (Comedian Eddie Izzard famously said, "They're not women's clothes. They're my clothes, I bought them.") But cultures across time have assigned masculine and feminine qualities to not only the behavior of men and women but also what they are culturally sanctioned--or forbidden--to wear based on perception of gender at the time. And if you look over history, you can see that there have been times when men were assigned garments (and make-up!) that are now considered only for women. And of course it has been acceptable for a long while now (a hundred years or so) for women to wear men's clothing because that is a symptom of the gender assignments based on the rule of men. As the famous quote from the film "The Cement Garden" goes, it is okay for women to wear men's clothing because a man is seen as something powerful and something to strive toward, but for a man to wear women's clothing is degrading because it is a collective societal viewpoint that being a woman is degrading. Woman are seen as having less power, they are weaker, they are "hysterical" or unpredictable, they are "too emotional" and easily swayed, they are paid less and worth less, their place is the home or in the bed. I think the #MeToo movement has proven that despite cultural and societal progress, women are still used and objectified. Just look at ads in magazines, on television, on billboards, in social media...and really objectively look at how women are sexualized and often fetishized, as they lounge around, near, or amongst a product. Now imagine a man dressed the exact same way and presented in the same fetishized way, and you can see the problem. Femininity is used, is wielded, is perverted. Once our culture at large sorts out its feelings about women and the truth of femininity, then we might be able to have a society where men and women get to wear whatever the hell they want without feeling that their "power" or "status" is in question.
Having said all that, I am glad that Art School are taking on this important work, but they need time to develop as artists. The collection felt a bit rag-tag. I show the below highlights anyhow...
It is usually effective when designers play with scale and perspective, upsetting expectations, and Pronounce (Yushan Li and Jun Zhou) showed duffle coats with delightfully unexpected large toggle closures. They also added chains of charms (they look like Southwestern conchas) to ankle boots and shoes, but while they look fascinating on the runway, they must be awkward to walk in.
Khalid Qasimi's collection was built around...*yawn*... sportswear, but he utilized images from legendary gay illustrator Mel Odom whose work has graced numerous album and book covers. That detail saved the collection...
Here are a few more images by Odom:
And Siying Qu and Haoran Li, who create under the brand Private Policy, called their show "Human vs. Money" which certainly had a lot to say about the corrosive effects of cash. Of course the people who say "Money can't buy happiness" have never really had to suffer or struggle--money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy safety, clothing, shelter, food, an education. It can buy the things that can allow one to live a happy life. Money buys power too, and this is where things start to go off the rails. Power corrupts and the acquisition of wealth for its own sake leads to unchecked greed and the kind of inequality that we are seeing in the world right now. In a comment on this toxic Capitalism (Capitalism that has lost its moral compass), Private Policy created acrylic backpacks and vests lined with shredded American cash shown on models who are pointedly manacled. Look at the cash stuffed in the last model's mouth--as though the gag is both a bribe to keep from speaking and a way of causing one to choke to death.
https://www.artschool-london.com/
http://pronouncestudio.com/
https://www.qasimi.com/
http://www.privatepolicyny.com/
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