Okay. I am not fashion trendy at all. Not even a little bit, but I came upon this montage and I just gotta ask:
What the hell are the designers thinking. Is this a joke? DO they make a joke piece and send it out? Or are they coked up a bit during the design phase (Is that a thing they do)? And that’s allowed? “Oh, that must be his coked-up design Wesley… just clap…”…
Well, at least two of those were from science fiction convention masquerades, and thus don’t really count as “fashion.” A few others were obviously parodies, and some were pretty likely “experimental” effect pieces.
(And one looked like a photoshop job on Princess Diana.)
But, yeah, given some of the stuff you see on runways in “serious” fashion shows, you can’t be blamed for wondering.
Yes. The stuff you see in catwalk shows is an artistic exaggeration of what they are actually going to produce for people to wear. For example: they’ve gone for animal prints? They’re going to have t-shirts with animal prints on. But that would be boring on the catwalk, so they have a woman parade along with a giant puma on her head.
In some cases, what’s officially being showcased is not the weird part. I suspect the two gents with the bubble wrap pants and lobster and the bubble wrap shirt, boring grey pants and piece of coral were showcasing the shoes, which are the only thing that’s sellable - but you have to dress up the rest of the models too: the rest of their ensembles leaves the shoes highly visible while providing material which will be shocking enough to make the fashion mags. The shoemakers get to showcase their perfectly sellable shoes while showing off their creativity and all that.
Yeah, catwalk fashion is not really meant to be buy off the racks wear in the streets, it’s more like the designer smacking you in the face with their choices and styles for the season. Depending on the designer, the only thing worth noticing might be their color choices or cuts they favor and that’s only if you’re concerned with being the absolute latest in trendy. No one is going out and stapling a lobster to their chest.
You want to learn any and everything you’ll ever need to know about the fashion world? Watch the highly underrated Ben Stiller/Will Ferrel film Zoolander! Or a ‘Bruno’ skit from Sasha Baron Cohen’s first hilarious HBO Ali G series.
When someone told me fashion was art, it all came clear. It’s just another art form. if you don’t like it, that’s fine, but those things are not meant to be worn.
What happens is, dude comes out with a gigantic lobster on his chest. And then the high-level designers and take that and change it to a fancy top with a lobster, or some such. And then the next level people take it and make a smaller lobster. And then the Kmart and walmart designers redo it for another, and eventually we get a very simple, shapeless top that has a small lobster on it. And so we have “lobsters in!” this year.
I mean, I exaggerate obviously. Lobsters are…whatever. But for art to come down to something the masses wear is actually kind of interesting.
I had the same lightbulb moment a few years ago too. And it’s an interesting art form in that it’s intentionally temporal and it tells you so much about the culture it was produced in.