The vigilant spectator would watch the elaborate puppet show Jeremy Scott created for Moschino this season and wonder: Was the designer painting a picture of our turbulent times through metaphors of political puppeteering, “strings attached,” and questions of real versus fake? Were his designs—couture-level garments that revealed their own construction—an image of much-needed truth in the public forum? “You’re totally reading into it,” he said on a video call from his home in Los Angeles as we both burst out in laughter. “The best thing I could do for everyone who is stressed about the election, the pandemic, social unrest, and the future was to give the gift of fantasy and take us away from all of it for a few minutes; let us enjoy this little fashion world of ours.”
Weeks before lockdown became a reality, Scott had already decided that his spring Moschino collection would celebrate the virtues of haute couture, more relevant now than ever. “I was thinking about how that is such a human, emotional, tactile thing: time, dedication, and the connection to design history,” he noted. After quarantine set in, Scott began to suspect that a runway show would not be in the cards this month. Inspired by the couture-centric nature of his research, he looked to the Théâtre de la Mode, the troupe of miniature couture creations the designers of Paris sent on the road after World War II to save their businesses from financial ruin amid scarce supplies and clients left unable to travel. Then he called Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the creator of the Muppets.
“What would be the best way for me to give the same experience that you’re used to, coming to see my shows live?” Scott wondered. “How could I give you that whimsy, that magic, that fantasy?” Along with the Creature Shop, he created marionettes of favorite models to wear the 40 looks, which were first made in life-size versions and then scaled down to fit the 30-inch puppets that “walked” the show, violins playing softly in the background. There were also editors for the front row. It may have been miniature, but it was a huge undertaking, more expensive, in fact, than a fashion show. “In April I had to pull the trigger and say, I have to stay with this, even if everything goes back to normal and everyone else has [runway] shows again,” Scott recalled.
Every garment, every fabric, and every motif had to be reproportioned to fit the dimensions of the marionettes without losing the authentic properties of the cloth. Every detail Scott added to the life-size looks had to be re-created in miniature. In homage to the culture of haute couture, the collection imitated the classic gestures of the craft. It also brought the construction of garments to the forefront, as if you were looking into their soul. A little cocktail gown had been exploded open, revealing another dress under it with a photograph of an inside-out embroidered dress; then a little chiffon skirt had been attached to it. An 18th-century blue day dress had the memory of the pinking shears that cut its insides featured as surface decoration on its bustier.
Fashion’s rediscovered appetite for haute couture and craftsmanship—boosted by the unstoppable savoir faire of designers like Scott, John Galliano, and Pierpaolo Piccioli—seems to know no end. The obvious explanation is our hankering for the human touch and the authentic. But paradoxically, social media—which arguably stands for the opposite—continues to play a key part in spreading the relevance of haute couture to the public. If anything, Scott’s puppet show, so perfect for Instagram it might break the Internet, demonstrated that fact.
Will the events of 2020 fuel our desire for couture even further? “People are like, ‘Sweatpants forever!’” Scott said, referring to the impacts of lockdown dressing. “But I love exciting things that are one of a kind and refined. We’re all desperate for that. I constantly kept getting dressed up every day even if I weren’t seeing people. It’s part of who I am.”
