From The Price Is Right to Pablo Picasso in six months. Jeremy Scott makes no distinction between low culture and high; all of it is ripe for the picking. “They’re all icons,” he said backstage. Vanna White and Françoise Gilot probably won’t get equal treatment in the history books, but you’ve gotta admire Scott’s enthusiasm and verve. When he lands on a concept, he is 100% committed.
Dedicated to Picasso and his muses, this collection was no exception. Rather appropriately the first look appeared to be a riff on Girl Before a Mirror. Later Bella Hadid played the Harlequin, and Kaia Gerber was the Girl With a Mandolin. The model-as-canvas idea allowed Scott to play around with two-dimensionality, a concept that produced one of his most memorable collections, Spring 2017’s life-size paper-doll clothes. This time the look that really got iPhones clicking was Cara Taylor’s; she was both painting and frame.
Thinking about Picasso led Scott to an extended riff on bullfighting, toreador costumes, and Stephen Jones’s brilliant headgear—the milliner gets a special commendation for the Cubist bull mask. There was also a flamenco aside that produced a fabulous red gown with brushed-on polka dots. Scott said backstage that all of the prints were hand-painted in the studio before being digitized. Oftentimes his shows come with a societal critique. The paper dolls were a takedown of our social-media-mad culture, and The Price Is Right took on hyper-consumerism. If there was a message here, it seemed to be about mastery. Picasso is high up in the pantheon. Scott has confidence to go there, and that’s an engaging thing.
