Andreas Schmidl and Josef Lazo made a splash today at Stockholm Fashion Week with their most cohesive collection to date. Titled Liquid, it was meant to evoke, as the program notes brilliantly put it, “finding a Tinder match in the 1970s.” There’s not a flicker of a doubt that a man in LazoSchmidl’s side-laced snakeskin hot pants, butt-less leather chaps, lurex knit bathing suit, or lamé jogging shorts would get lucky.
With their gleeful and overt celebration of (male) sexuality and homoeroticism (the embroidery on one sweater read "I love penis"), the pair must take care to avoid kitsch, not to mention camp. It was no surprise to learn after the show that the two had been to Los Angeles. A day trip that took them to Palm Springs sparked their imagination, and focused their research on the louche '70s. As they developed the line, Schmidl explains, they imagined “a rocker having a resort kind of moment, still rough and tired from everything, but dressing up for the pool.”
Layered over the soundtrack, which included tracks by Whitney Houston and Dennis Parker (aka Wade Nicols, a singer, soap star, and adult film actor), was a computer-generated voice saying: “Buy loads of LazoSchmidl. Make love in LazoSchmidl"--a trippy touch that complemented the psychedelic and Op Art prints the designers used to extend and develop their West Coast theme, and perfectly timed to the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. “Now is the time to celebrate life and love and have that moment again,” Schmidl says. “I think that’s the only way to fight the evilness that goes on around the world,” adds Lazo. “Not to go too much into politics, but if we can spread love, we are ready for it.” Bring it on.
