It’s the politically correct fashion for an age of international uncertainty. The avant-garde designers have turned away from the glitz and glamour of the ’80s. They also seem to have rejected whimsy, bright colors and obvious sexuality. Gone are the flaunt-the-body tight miniskirts, Madonna-style corsets, and vibrant yellow and turquoise peacock colors of recent years. Instead, designers like Margiela, Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto and Ann Demeulemeester served up a somber stew: black or earthtoned skirts that droop to the ankles, unevenly cut layers of protective clothing that cover the body and unfinished slice-and-dice hems and seams. Even the shows’ musical scores, which designers use to underline their messages, were bleak-at Comme des Garcons, Marianne Faithfully crooned “Somebody’s gotta suffer, somebody’s gotta feel some pain.” Times are tough, these avant-garde designers seem to be saying. Life is serious. Sex is dangerous. Fashion should reflect reality.
Yet if fashion is going to be as dreary as life, who wants it? Most people are likely to look at the pictures of these bizarre creations and mutter: “No one is ever going to wear this stuff.” But is that really true? It hasn’t been in the past. Many of the styles widely worn today were scorned as outrageous absurdities when they first appeared (chart). Jean Paul Gaultier first showed corsets and bras on the runway nearly a decade ago. Today, lingerie as outerwear is commonplace. In 1977, Claude Montana sent his models out in black leather jackets padded like linebackers. A few years later shoulder pads were sold at Woolworth’s and most women were stuffing them into their sweaters and blouses. When Karl Lagerfeld, in his October 1989 show for Chanel, showed long jackets worn only with leggings, he created a scandal. Even fashion writers hastily assured their readers that Lagerfeld had actually made-just not shown-matching skirts. Surely the world was not ready for pantless pantsuits, or jock chic at the office.
But women all over the world warmed to the workout look, and two years later the style had caught on. Now there’s hardly a mall in America where some suburban housewife isn’t wearing leggings with a jacket or long shirt. And just as the Japanese designers of the late ’70s showed asymmetrical cuts that became popular in the early ’80s, the nihilistic elements in this year’s shows will probably be picked up commercially a few years from now in some form or other, even if only as a jagged hem.
In the avant-garde, though, frayed hems are only a starting point. “Deconstructionism” has come to couture seams shown on the outside, loose threads and strings dangling from expensive fabrics. The mood is so serious, it’s depressing. At Comme des Garcons, a parade of long outfits suitable for mourning filed down the runway. Some ankle-length dresses had tops draped like straitjackets; others were cut into baggy shapes with frayed seams. On one black dress, the sleeves were inserted backward to create bunched folds at the shoulder. These clothes are the ultimate anti-fashion statement. Having declared fashion dead with her ragged, unraveling outfits last season, Kawakubo has now provided the clothes to wear to the funeral. Given the price-an evening dress can cost $1,800it’s hard to imagine that many people will feel compelled to buy them. “They have to hope there are a lot of suicidal millionaires out there,” said a European fashion critic.
The designers feign surprise at this reaction. “Black is not sad,” Demeulemeester says. “Bright colors are what depresses me. They’re so … empty.” Besides, she adds, black is poetic. “How do you imagine a poet?” she asks. “In a bright yellow jacket?” Probably not. Demeulemeester says her designs communicate her emotions. Many of her clothes are made of men’s suit fabrics, giving them an androgynous look. “I don’t believe in men and women, but in human beings,” she says.“I think revealing hips and breasts isn’t sexy but vulgar. A woman isn’t only a doll.”
Margiela doesn’t go in for low-cut mini dresses, either. His clothes have always concealed most of the body, though often with a ragged look. He argues that just because he takes things apart doesn’t mean he’s destroying them. Rather, he thinks his designs have more to do with recycling. “When I slash down old or new clothes, it’s to transform them,” Margiela says. “It’s my way of bringing them back to life in a different form.” For some of his collection, Margiela chose old clothes at the Paris flea market and recut them. One of his new designs is a wool blazer that he washes so it becomes permanently wrinkled and slightly misshapen. The finished product looks like someone has slept in it.
There is something a little disturbing about making expensive clothes that evoke images of the homeless–Margiela’s slept-in-the-Metro look, for example, costs $1,000. The romanticization of poverty is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, who thought the peasants so quaint that she built, on the grounds of Le Petit Trianon in Versailles, a royal version of a peasant village where she and her ladies could pass the time. But the peasants got even-she was eventually guillotined. The fashion world is hardly ready to do the same to the hot deconstructionist designers. But if it did, they’ve made just the right clothes to wear to the event.
< b>YOU LAUGHED, YOU HATED, YOU BOUGHT IT
Being first with a fashion idea isn’t always easy, and it’s rarely profitable in the short run. Customers gape in horror at shocking new styles to snap them up, in modified forms, a few years later.
