“We are Victorious. We are the Young Barren Warriors of Planet X. At your peril, you will have forgotten us, but we hark back to times stretching eons.  Our heads are always held up high so that our gaze is fixed upon infinity, but no you won’t see our eyes as we protect ourselves with special glasses made of lead, which protects us from the tritium radiation found everywhere in our thin planet atmosphere.  Like Riddick, we see in the dark, so we take it for natural that our forms and our fashion must appear alien to you. Dark perhaps. But our mission is not to destroy, but to impress, to flaunt, to walk and to walk on.  We are the walkers, the ones you have forgotten. For man’s journey from boyhood to man is not without scars, and not without moments of peril.  The reason we appear so strange and alien to you, is because this part of manhood has long been forgotten. On your world this old way of life lies still hidden and preserved in what you call the middle ages, or in TV shows like ‘Games of Thrones’.  Hence your fascination.  And in Ridley Scott Sci-Fi movies of course. We are the last refuge of forgotten manhood, our lives are viaticals, in which things will come to pass which cannot be planned or controlled. We are free, not of because who we want to be, or by the petty privileges which authorities can bestow upon us, but by the burden of our fate. Because to become a real man, is the greatest thing there is.  But let us walk on, because the days are short on our planet, two suns are setting, and the night is full of danger.”

Many kudos to Dutch designer Mirte van Wijngaarden at Amsterdam Fashion Week day two who created a collection “We Are Victorious” which can be referenced as fitting for the outcast cast of men in a post – apocalyptic end-of-times kind of movie who are still meandering and roaming the planet in search of something which they know must exist but of which they have forgotten the meaning despite their strong reliance upon all their inner resources – is it love perhaps?

This collection thus definitely tells a powerful story and has a strong message but, mind you, what is impressive the most, is that besides the impressive looks and style created, that the materials used are actually backing up and embedding this Mad Max movie scene. Who would actually think of using lead as a material in fashion? And this in combination with leathers, cottons, linen, latex (hmm), and get this, many a portion of very useful flax.

Flax is a very useful type of material as we all know (think potatoes) and is known as Linum Usitatissimum in Latin which would probable translate as ‘Linen to be used’ and yes, one may very well imagine Riddick or some other doleful warrior in desperate need of resources resort to the use of flax for, aye, the very basic need of clothing.

Where is that bag of potatoes when you most need it, when, all things being equal and all things well considered you would rather prefer to go hungry rather than not to be clothed properly?  A hipsters nightmare.  A warriors dream.  Instructions:  Just cut that flax in pieces and style yourself. Aye, use some latex you find down the road, some rubber perhaps, and if you are lucky some old leather from animals long dead and gone.  And then you get up and put on your protecive eyewear – lead. No need to be smug. Just be calm and very collected, so you can keep on walking…

Posted by Sandro Joo and photos by Paloma Canseco.