by Adriana Zingone
Jeremy Scott is certainly not the first designer to recast conventional gender assumptions, breaking down their binary constructs. But he might be the first at least, in the high-fashion realm to reassemble them as a conjoined dinner jacket.
What he dubbed the tandem tux appeared as the final look of tonight’s Moschino show following a purposefully provocative lineup that spanned dominatrix to ladylike, demimonde to debonair often as a single statement. The jacket tails twisted like a partial Möbius strip between a couple who were otherwise shirtless, although in such a way that breasts proved irrelevant. “In the end, aren’t we all joined?” Scott offered backstage in the midst of models lifting off their latex masks.
To be sure, the emphasis on glossy black surfaces automatically gave a high degree of kink to this collection, yet that messaging was often expressed to avoid an X rating: a swatch of lacing defining the back waist of a tailored coat; the blurred faces referencing Carlo Mollino (the renowned architect-photographer enjoyed his fair share of eroticism); the lingerie over suiting and T-shirts that will forever be linked to Jean-Paul Gautier.
Several looks including a gown boasting a train shaped like an overgrown glove could be viewed through the lens of #whywewearblack. Scott’s response: “People are in control of their sexuality and the way they want to look; you’re owning your own power.” By that token, a male model looked no less masculine in a frilly dressing gown or tiered tulle cape, just as the women rocked suspenders with their fuck-me boots.
Filter out the fetish, though, and you’re left with a fair number of curb-appeal coats, some rather stunning evening options, and a black adaption of last year’s pink pussy hat. Everybody had their role to play, mixing men, women and creatures of different sexual orientation, with everyone on equal footing and, of course, that footing was in thick-heeled biker boots or lace-up patent leather thigh-high ones.
Incorporating corseting and S&M bondage material, it was all about being constricted but being liberated through that constriction. Jeremy Scott walks the runway with models at the end of the show for Moschino Menswear and Women’s Pre-Collection during Milan Men’s Fashion Week fall winter 2018/19 in Milan, on Jan. 13, 2018.
