Often when reading a fashion press release before watching a show or presentation you get away with the feeling that the designer has no clue, or does not know precisely or exactly what is going to be presented in the first case – because there is a grand mélange of colors, materials, ideas, concepts, cuts, and designs that is being brought to the table and spelled out, and it is then up to the fashion critic to make sense of it all, to put it all together in your mind, and to give it direction once things have crystallized on the runway. And so fashion writers go looking for the latest signature, the latest trend, the latest sign, clues, cues, keys, or patterns – analyzing all until a general concept and idea in the clothing line or in the collection are found – and until the press release finally makes sense.
Surprise, surprise then that the Fabio Quaranta W 16 collection we visited in Paris was themed as hodgepodge and a porridge (hey that works almost every time), but that what we actually found was something moving and traditional which seemed to be tightly stuck to conservative sartorial wisdom, featuring traditional wardrobes of rural peoples (allez les montagnards à Paris), with classic tailoring as proof of conventional values woven into a folk aesthetic of clothes ready for yesteryear and ready for the ages: But with the sullen & perverse post-modern twist that the collection was entirely genderless, androgynous, and made for both women as well as men.
Now of course a pleated skirt is for women one would say, but aye today a real man is supposed to be able to wear the kilts as well. We suppose! A cassock or a tailcoat should be something for a devout man of stature you say, but does it look good on a woman? Are we really supposed to notice the difference of who is a woman and who is a man? Did not YSL start this shocking trend many years ago when first women were dressed in suits?
As of course in rural and traditional cultures these reflections above are a much settled point and a question which would never be raised, here in the Fabio Quaranta collection W 2016 this was the very theme that caused the press release to talk about ‘porridge’ – meaning the mixing of the sexes in the concept and design of the collection.
Think the traditional wear of the Amish, the Mennonites, old Huguenots, Waldensians, and other very orthodox and often strict religious groups and cultures, but then refashioned and refurbished so that both men and women can all wear the same thing. Think it in traditional wool, in alpaca, velvet, and aye, of course, that heavy woven farmers cloth – which almost looks like rope or sackcloth, but here to be seen in grand assembly and on show and on display being worn by boys who could be girls and girls who could be boys: A grand provocation of course, and a contrast and an opposition of what are traditional values with what some have come to expect to be a modern cosmopolitan life (as a direct result of this show all men can now start braiding their hair on both sides in the traditional and authentic Asterix & Obelix, the Gaulois style, but BDMOTP recommends that you keep a moustache).
So as confusing as the press release was, these are the wholesome trends and signatures for this collection: Genderless, traditional, folkloric, and conventional – with conservative colors (loads of brown) and materials matching the values of the rural peoples and communities of yore. Not all so hodgepodge and porridge (except for the colors maybe) as expected. A serene type of traditional beauty follows this very worthwhile collection, and BDMOTP hopes that Fabio Quaranta W 16 will take off on city streets where it once left off: On the mountains, in the hills, and in old and forgotten villages…
Posted by Sandro Joo and photos by Franz Kennedy.
