After announcing his sudden exit from the label, we travel over some of the designer’s best high-low moments
In 1994, Franco Moschino printed a t-shirt with the phrase “good taste doesn’t exist”, coining a slogan that would become something of a mantra for the fashion house’s tongue-in-cheek approach to dress-making. He also said, “if you can’t be elegant, at least be extravagant,” both of which are statements that Jeremy Scott seemed to cling to during his ten-year residence at Moschino – dressing models in bin bags, McDonald’s uniforms, life-size floral arrangements, and Barbie merchandise. Scott’s sudden departure – which he broadcasted to Instagram last night – will leave a Marie Antoinette–sized hole in the fashion calendar. Let them eat cake! But also, let them wear cake!
At fashion week, which so often tends to be a carousel of lovely (but sometimes quite boring) clothes, Scott’s shows were a much-needed sugar high. He, like his predecessors, made the cheap, chic – which was the name of Moschino’s former diffusion line and perfume but could just as feasibly have been its guiding principle. It was about entertainment and eliciting a smile from knackered editors on their 100th show of fashion season – long before people started moaning about fashion week gimmicks on Twitter. Scott has yet to reveal his next steps within the industry but has said he is filled with “excitement and anticipation” for what’s in store. As for who might take up the mantle at Moschino is anyone’s bet, with social media suggesting names as varied as Rottingdean Bazaar and Robert Wun and Giuliano Calza.
Below, we travel back over some of Jeremy Scott’s most memorable moments at Moschino and all the times he managed to make the cheap, chic.
THE BAG LADIES OF AW17
Scott loves a high-low moment, but nowhere was that more graphically rendered than during his AW17 collection for Moschino. There, models stormed down a catwalk in piles of artfully-arranged trash: bin bags had been swagged into draped dresses, dry cleaning bags became transparent slips, while plastic bottles, tissues, and milk cartoons burst forth from bustiers. It was, as he described it “cardboard couture”, with ball gowns made from shower curtains and bubble wrap, and faux-fur stoles made from rat. “Couture is an attitude”, the front of a t-shirt read. The back? “It’s not a price point”.
THE RONALD MCDONALDS OF AW14
With AW14, Scott granted fashion’s glitterati permission to indulge their most repressed desires. On the catwalk, he appropriated McDonald’s mustard yellow and Ketchup red uniforms and created Frankensteined Ronald McDonald and Coco Chanel hybrids. Presumably aware of just how much fashion people love to Instagram from McDonald’s meals during fashion season, the designer paraded quilted bags on fast food trays, twisted the golden arches into Moschino’s trademark logo, and added chain straps to Happy Meal boxes. And then there was a slew of eveningwear crafted from fake candy wrappers and cereal boxes – tasting low culture through couture.
THE MECHANICS OF SS16
For SS16, Jeremy Scott installed a genuine car wash that sprayed bubbles onto the runway while the walls of the show venue were festooned with warning signs reading “No Parking, Couture Zone,” and “Dangerous Couture Ahead.” Models walked in high-vis jackets that had been refashioned into full-skirted trench coats and LBDs. As always, it was a collection of puns and soundbites, with traffic cone chapeaus, caution-tape bows, and Windex spray bottle clutches. Models swished and flounced down the runway, breaking with the blank-faced expressions beloved by so many other designers at the time. That being said, it would have been difficult to walk in a fringed carwash cylinder with a scowl etched across the face.
THE POOL FLOATS OF SS23
There was never much subtext to Jeremy Scott’s collections at Moschino, which made his work feel all the more accessible and generous: you didn’t need to be a chin-strokey Fashionphile to understand the designer’s motivations. For SS23, he tackled the issue of rising inflation – and quite literally – by blowing up inflatable clothing like garish party balloons, with nozzles and helium. Almost every piece had some kind of puffed-up accent, appearing across hemlines, collars, and swollen heart details. Pool floats became peplum inserts, neatly tailored jackets were blown up on either side, and life rings were reimagined as bracelet bangles. Times were (and still are) bleak, but perhaps we don’t need to see that reflected like-for-like on the runway; a Moschino pool party might provide a better balm.
THE BARBIES OF SS15
At the opening of Scott’s SS15 collection, a familiar "Hiya, Barbie!" rang out from the loudspeakers. Where Ronald McDonald had got the high-low treatment in previous seasons, it was Barbie who emerged as the designer’s protagonist – rollerblading to the edge of the runway in a bubble-lettered logo bra, track shorts, and a hot-pink sweatband. There were Spa Barbies with terry cloth handbags, Vacation Barbies with fuchsia suitcases, and Prom Barbies in taffeta gowns with sweetheart necklines and ruffled shoulders – all of whom were decorated with platinum-blonde wigs and bubblegum-pink lipstick. If American culture is pop culture then Barbie is surely its mascot. “Her and I share the same things,” Scott said backstage. “We just want to bring joy to people.”