Choosing Prada coats instead of holidays, Gucci getting inspired by ‘Birdman’ and Rick Owens comparing himself to Ralph Lauren
A rogue model unfurling a banner with a pseudo-political statement; a couture show staged in a casino jam-packed with iconic celebrity muses; a 14-year-old girl plucked from life sharing a one-bedroom apartment with her family propelled into model stardom. It’s a cliché, but a month is a really long time in fashion. As the industry goes from Milan to Paris, menswear to couture, and now to New York’s first dedicated week for the boys, here are five standout stories from the past month to help you keep up.
THE MAN BEHIND THE NEW GUCCI
“I am trying to cause a little revolution inside the company – to push another language.” So says Alessandro Michele in Vogue this month, the man who turned around Gucci’s aesthetic for AW15 menswear, transforming it into a vision of gender-bending bohemianism. Until now though, he’s remained a bit of a mystery, someone to be decoded through the postmodern prose of his press releases. So what did we learn from this longread with Hamish Bowles? That Michele got inspired by the colour palette of Birdman for his AW15 womenswear collection, wears 11 rings on his fingers and thinks the style of people in LA is “not chic, but it’s inspiring”.
IN GREECE, CHANEL IS WORTH MORE THAN CASH
This month in Greece, the country edged further to the brink of economic collapse. This month in Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld showed his couture collection in an elaborate casino, complete with CC-decorated tables and a gang of A-listers (Kristen Stewart, Julianne Moore and new face of the house Lily-Rose Depp). The parallel unfolding of Greece’s debt crisis and the elaborate extravagance of couture season was a contradiction not lost on many, but we shouldn’t view the parade of fashion’s most expensive clothes as a symptom of an industry totally divorced from the real world, as this dispatch from Athens showed. In the face of economic uncertainty, people are seeing luxury goods as a legitimate investment – where money has lost its meaning, the value of Chanel remains.
RICK OWENS ON RALPH LAUREN
Other than their nationality, what common ground do Rick Owens and Ralph Lauren share? Apparently, more than we thought. In a feature with AnOther Magazine, the designer revealed his opinion on the fellow American designer – and gave us what is probably one of the best fashion quotes of the year. “I am a reaction to Ralph Lauren,” he said – “That preppy thing, in love with the British aristocracy; a whole fake world that really wants to be royal. And yet I am criticising that kind of fakery when I am the same fake thing. Except I am a middle-aged opera queen in loafers that makes out I am a 16 year old death metal skater… It’s all fake!”
CELEBRITY DAUGHTERS REPLACE DECREPIT MOTHERS
This week, 16-year-old Lily-Rose Depp was unveiled as the new face of Chanel, and supermodel Cindy Crawford’s 13-year-old daughter Kaia Gerber was signed to agency IMG and appeared in a shoot by Bruce Weber. Fashion’s obsession with the young is ongoing, as explored in this op-ed slash agony aunt piece by the Guardian’s Hadley Freeman. Admittedly, it’s a pretty harsh way of viewing the next generation, but does fashion fixate too much on youth and its constant quest for the new? As Freeman puts it, “Their mothers have been around for donkeys’ years and even if they are still mind-bogglingly beautiful, as Cindy Crawford and Vanessa Paradis undoubtedly are – BORING! Bring on some new versions!”
HOLIDAYS OR PRADA?
In this piece for the Evening Standard, the Independent’s Fashion Editor Alexander Fury explores an ancient dilemma: do you go on holiday, or do you buy that Prada coat? In this funny (and alarmingly relatable) piece, Fury, who “hasn’t swum in the sea since 1995, or had a tan since 2001” explores the fashion industry’s tendency towards workaholism. Unlike the Italians, who pop off for a month over summer to top up their tans, the fashion wheel has a tendency to keep spinning in London, and with an increasingly global fashion schedule, who needs a holiday? After all, these articles don’t write themselves...
