By Terri Cluckie
I just came across a tweet that goes along the lines of Hedi Slimane being unoriginal; how Saint Laurent is basically just a collection of clothes that you can already buy at American Apparel and Savers and now I feel like I’ve been duped for years.
His “Womenswear Part Two” collection for AW16 is yet to come; it is highly anticipated, hot stuff. Heck even I was waiting on the edge of my proverbial seat but now I’m woke and nothing satisfies any more.
Leather jackets and furs and pussybows with rockstar hair; it all looks so pretty, so punk and so everything I love to dress in. But it is original? What even makes a successful collection? What makes a designer? Is it the wearability, the buy-ability, the originality of their designs? These are the questions I’m now asking myself in search for an answer to the most important: should I even like fashion any more or is it all a lie because I’m being fed regurgitated trends season after season?
I’ve had this thought a few times this past month after watching quite a few disappointing shows and I often think like this when I read reviews from critics. Cathy Horyn for The Cut recently said of the Eckhaus Latta show in New York, “each style that came out last night was unique, and, in a way, a more refined offshoot of things they’ve done before”. The thing is though, everything is an offshoot of things done before, it’s just sometimes people like it and sometimes people yawn.
For so long the conversation re. the style definition of the naughties has been that there really isn’t one. Fashion is so fast today that a decade-defining style just really doesn’t stand a chance. I mean we have skinny jeans but what are they against floral shirts and flares? More importantly what will we wear to fancy dress parties in years to come that are themed “The 2010s”? A onesie? Fuck off.
Maybe we’re beyond definitions though. Maybe repetition is all we can look forward to because it has all been done before and what – we’re just gonna stop Fashion Month? Don’t think so.
One tweet may have unravelled Saint Laurent for me but there is still hope for the rest of you. Fashion Week will go on without me and you should too! The point is this though: if nothing is new anymore… Then stop buying clothes because you already have everything. Just kidding. It’s this: it’s down to the individual to find originality in what they wear. The beauty of fashion is creativity and being able to reinvent yourself through the clothes on your back. Saint Laurent might show another leather jacket on Monday, but you know what? How many leather jackets is too many leather jackets anyway?
[Photo credits: http://www.vogue.co.uk]
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