Billionaires aren’t the only ones obsessed with outer space. Henrik Vibskov has thoughts on the last frontier as well, and he presented some of them in a fall collection that featured lunar prints, “moon shoes,” and futuristic popcorn knits. Even with all that, he escaped feeling Space Age-y. Perhaps that’s because the designer was just in orbit, as it were, for a visit, and spent most of his time looking down at this “blue marble” and remembering its sounds and smells.
The collection is titled Biblioteca of Micro Selves because the team was thinking about memory and “future archiving,” and asking themselves questions like “which belonging would you bring, if you were traveling to space or to your graveyard?” Taking things one step further, the staff made those selections, which were vacuum-packed and suspended on lit poles to form the show set. (Vibskov’s choice was a box of his baby teeth.)
Fashion itself is a kind of time capsule, both on a personal and a popular level: We recognize an era through pictures of clothes; cherished garments that no longer leave the closet hold memories of who we once were. Vibskov’s collection wasn’t vintagey, but it was about preservation in a roundabout way. Note the many “life vests,” based on objects used to save people. Protection remains a topical theme in a world of pandemics, recession, and threats of war. Happily, Vibskov skipped the apocalyptic vibes; this was an upbeat and experimental collection that showed his chops as a designer.
The opening suit featured origami-like pockets attached to a harness that tied gently around the body, and there were many interesting structured sleeves. With fluffy plaid pieces, and with khaki, Vibskov offered his take on the popular woodsy/outdoor theme; tamer pieces included well-cut coats and his signature intarsia knits. Not all of the looks will suit most earthlings; the protective and quilted pieces were quite bulky, for example. That matters less in the grand scheme of things than the fact that Vibskov has created his own distinct universe that orbits the worlds of art, music, and fashion in a way that feels especially relevant now as barriers and binaries give way to more fluid ways of existing on earth.
