Without quite casting him as a human rights activist, Riccardo Tisci's new collection for Givenchy was concerned with the state of the incarcerated male. There was a cage on stage. The collection's signature embellishment was a huge jailer's key dangling round the models' necks. But there was more to this than Tisci's well-established way with a dramatic presentation.
Not for the first time his religion was his guide. If his Instagram account scarcely paints a picture of a life lived in pursuit of spirituality, Tisci is serious about his Catholic roots. His inspiration was Jesus Christ, the most famous prisoner of all time and, as such, an icon for men in jail. It fascinated Tisci that Jesus is just as much a pinup on a cell wall as are pictures of pneumatic beauties torn from magazines. So he put them both on his catwalk.
Jesus was depicted in his thorn-crowned passion across T-shirts, sweatshirts, and men's skirts. He was printed ID-style on the oversize tees that are familiar from jail-based reality TV shows. Jesus was also a shadow print, Shroud of Turin-style, on prison denims and overalls. (This particularly spectral effect was one of Tisci's best-evers.) But alongside Him on the catwalk were women who, in their feathered, petaled, fringed, and lacey dresses in cool ice-cream colors, could scarcely be any less of a jailbird's fantasy. And when Naomi Campbell closed the show in nothing more than a glittering jacket thrown over a black bikini and thigh-highs? Well, milord, the case rests. She was the bad girl that bad boys would see in their dreams.
Tisci played out the tension across a gratifyingly tight collection. If the overalls made the biggest impression, the knitted kilts over pinstriped pants (like sweaters tied round the waist, Tisci explained) were an evolution of his modern tribal gear. The T-bar sandals that shod the collection were a welcome alternative to the socked horrors we've been seeing for the past while.
