Sex-ecutive realness: Moschino’s kinky AW18 Menswear show

Good girls and boys go to heaven, bad girls and boys – with their hair fashioned, aptly, into devil horns – go everywhere. Moschino closed Saturday’s shows in Milan on a high note, with a subversive take on how to challenge gender codes as part of a fetish party extravaganza (and presumably an army of people backstage to apply liberal amounts of latex shine). Here’s what went down. 

THE INVITE WAS A VHS TAPE

Kicking it old school. Maybe with a sex tape? We sadly didn’t get a chance to pop it in a VCR on our way to the show, but Jeremy Scott had this to say backstage after the show about it: “Maybe it’s surveillance, maybe you’re not sure what it is. It’s just a little bit… (it) makes you feel uneasy. It was very David Lynchian in my thoughts.”

SEX-ECUTIVE REALNESS, THE JEREMY SCOTT WAY 

“I love that! That can be yours,” Scott said of our late-night pun, brought on by the way he’d played with “pent-up” pinstripe suiting, adding corset lacing or cutting it away to reveal lots of flesh similar to an off-shoulder evening dress.

THE COLLECTION WAS A SHOUTOUT TO GENDER DIVERSITY 

At the core of the collection was a desire to push the confines of gender and traditionally gender-attributed clothing, done with tongue placed firmly in cheek, because a) Moschino and b) Jeremy Scott. “I’m thinking about menswear and womenswear and these tropes and taking from one to the other and pulling them all together and figuring out how to make things feel new and energetic,” Scott explained, adding: “(Issues around gender) is our pop culture and it’s great. I’m so happy to see so many of my friends who are non-gender binary, who are trans, who are masculine but heterosexual, or feminine but heterosexual – all these different (people) to feel like they have a place and have a voice and can be seen. So I think it is just about today, what is the actual world we are living in.”

PUSHING THE MASCULINE-FEMININE CONVERSATION

Gimp masks: they’re actually a great tool for genderless dressing and popped up throughout the collection, joined by anonymous latex balaclavas and The Night Porter braces. DIY collages of safety-pinned words covered outerwear, shouting ‘Bottom’, ‘Lick’, ‘Thirsty’, ‘Stud’, ‘Daddy’ and the likes. Boys walked the runway in frilly tulle trains, cut-out French floral suits or butch utility khaki revealing heavily embellished backs. We also spotted the gorgeous Vincent Beier in an ostrich-hemmed satin coat dress. Closing the show: a pair of androgynous models – one of which was RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Violet Chachki – wearing a double tuxedo jacket that linked them via the tail.

CARLO MOLLINO’S POLAROIDS MADE AN APPEARANCE

The haunting, mysterious Polaroids by Carlo Mollino of anonymous semi-nude women had been transferred onto silk crepe looks and outerwear that delivered an unexpected and quiet softness. The pieces also switched the male gaze to a knowing female ownership (or whoever would like to look extremely pretty in a wartime-vibe dress).

GOING OUT ON A LIMB TO SAY MADONNA WILL LOVE THIS

From the silky suspenders to the thigh-high lace-up boots and general badassery, this had longtime Moschino fan Madonna written all over it. Over and out from day two of Milan. Moschino, you know how to get the party started.