UC G TIN R T S N O C E D
VETEMENTS
WHAT STARTED AS A QUIET REVOLUTION HAS TURNED INTO NOTHING SHORT OF A STAMPEDE, WITH PARISIAN BRAND VETEMENTS SETTING FIRE TO THE SYSTEM, REALIGNING SCARCITY WITH LUXURY AND CREATING A S/S16 COLLECTION THAT’S AN ODE TO IRRATIONAL COOL V etements makes no sense whatsoever. At face value, it’s one of fashion’s greatest mysteries – a fledgling brand whose sock-material boots and thousand-dollar hoodies are impossible to keep in stock.
Disruptive seems to be its middle name – from the clandestine way it was founded two years ago (by a collective of seven designers who remained anonymous due to contracts elsewhere), to the design of the pieces themselves. You’re forced to look twice; was that really a cigarette lighter masquerading as a heel? Are those sleeves meant to be grazing her knees? Is that… a DHL T-shirt?! It’s deconstructionismmeets-the-streets, underscored by the kind of punky iconoclasm that echoes McQueen or Margiela. Something Natalie Kingham, buying director at matchesfashion.com agrees with: “When I first saw the collection it resonated with me as it reminded me of a more updated 90s Margiela,” she told us. Understandable, since concept founder Demna Gvasali cut his teeth at the iconic Belgian fashion house. (He’s also since been tapped by Balenciaga to take over from Alexander Wang.) “I wanted to take an expensive silhouette and deliberately subvert the purpose of the garment by using a tacky material,”Gvasali told the New York Times about the asymmetric, velour evening slips that peppered his S/S16 collection. He called it a “Juicy Couture” finish. Cue thousands of enthralled fashion fans throwing down their credit cards – if, indeed, they could still get their hands on the brand’s sell-out pieces. That DHL T-shirt? According to Lyst.com, 30,000 people searched for it on their site last month alone. “We have seen an unprecedented response to the collection – it wasn’t just the jeans that sold out but almost the complete collection last season,” Natalie says.
Most disruptive of all, however, is Demna and brother and CEO Gurum’s insistence on rewriting the fashion calendar, with plans to put men’s and womenswear collections together and show in January, not March. The rationale is three-fold; to outstrip copycat fast fashion outlets, to quell over-production and to stick two fingers up to the runaway cult of pre-collections. The message is clear; designers need a rest, dammit. And in this day and age, what’s more revolutionary than that?