Ah, the eighties, when fashion was fun and cheeky! When no one batted a false eyelash over a ridiculously exaggerated shoulder or a crop top on a man. This was Franco Moschino's heyday, and his poke-a-finger-at-fashion aesthetics allowed people to simultaneously buy into fashion and show a certain disdain for the ludicrousness of it all—a style version of having your cake and eating it, too. This postmodern and paradoxical irony has not been able to flourish in the same way since, but recently there have been hints that the time is ripe for some fashion wit again, judging by the success of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and caps emblazoned with "Homiès," "Céline me alone," and "Ballinciaga." Enter Jeremy Scott, a man who has seemingly been waiting for this moment his whole life. "It feels culturally relevant," he said backstage, adding that when it comes to witty slogans, Moschino did them first. So in a way, this collection was a reassertion of authority. It started with a suit and ended with one. But in between there was a beach party—featuring an admirably diverse cast of sexy models in various states of undress.
Scott surely had a ball with Moschino ideas, creating Chanel-like logos from interlocking smileys and "borrowing" the Hermès ribbon and using it for a square pattern on orange denim—the nerve! He even mocked the Moschino brand itself, letting peace signs morph into monograms and writing "Fauxschino" on hoodies and vests. And in the same vein as Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills painting, Scott closed the show with a series of looks with gold embroidered dollar signs, spelling out that this was luxury. It was a smart reference to the iconic "Expensive Jacket" jacket from 1990, but it also showed that what was once a critique of the fashion system is today just pure pop.
Backstage, Scott talked about how he just wanted to do things that people want to wear, and added that all the models had asked to take the clothes home with them. In a world where models are critics, this might be construed as a rave review, but really it was more a testament to how much Scott's vision of Moschino is tuned in to young people's commercial sensibilities.
