The Great Escape
From the healing qualities of nature to the childlike joy of dressing up, Jamie Huckbody finds fun, sanctuary, and even a little inner peace at the Spring/Summer ’18 international collections.
“Breathe in ... and breathe out. Breathe in ... and ... breathe out ...” The meditation guide’s gentle but assured voice lilts upwards before pausing and then falling back into its hypnotic rhythm. “I want you to imagine yourself ... in a place ... where you are totally ... at peace.”
Instinctively, if not strangely, I’m mentally transported to Chanel’s Spring/Summer ’18 show in the Grand Palais, Paris. I’m looking up at the backdrop Karl Lagerfeld has summoned for his collection—a replica of the Gorges du Verdon river canyon in southeastern France. As Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” bursts from the speakers, filling the air with its heady synthesised beat, out comes Kaia Gerber in digital-age tweed and space-age plastic. Sublime. More of Lagerfeld’s beauty army follows, all wearing reimagined takes on Coco’s signature bouclé. Some sprout mosslike green tufts while others appear to be as light as the breeze that’s wafting spray from the indoor canyon’s cascading waterfalls. Lagerfeld has thought of everything. Crystalclear waterproofing has been crafted into capes, boater hats, and thigh-high boots. Even the bags have their own raincoats. And then, as if Lagerfeld himself has commanded it, the sun shines through the glass ceiling and a rainbow appears over the waterfall. Ahhh. Totally at peace. Such was the need for calm after last season’s protest-inspired fashion that the Spring/Summer ’18 collections offered something of a refuge from the current political doom and gloom. “We always say that fashion is a reflection of our times. Well, maybe that’s enough of that,” Dries Van Noten says backstage at the Hôtel de Ville. And so, instead of holding up a mirror to a world teetering towards nuclear war and hell-bent on environmental ruin, Van Noten dreamed up dresses made for sky-gazing and playing dress-up. How else would you explain his joyous dresses printed with fluffy white cumulus clouds scudding across an inky sky, or sunshine-bright silk scarves that form dresses themselves? “Dries’s collections almost always carry a sense of optimism about them,” says Nicola Lie, director of Poepke boutique, Sydney’s go-to for all things Van Noten. “There was also a note of innocence with the nude slip dresses and sheer tulle overgarments. There is fragility, but also a feeling of strength and self-possession.”
The Belgian designer wasn’t the only one with fun high on the agenda. Moschino celebrated its official collaboration with Hasbro in a series of My Little Pony T-shirts and sweatshirt dresses (“I’m always doing escapism. I do escapism when people don’t even wanna escape,” says the brand’s creative director, Jeremy Scott), while Comme des Garçon’s founder Rei Kawakubo, told a tale of lost innocence, subverting all things super kawaii: dresses printed with wide-eyed manga girls and the models’ wigs housing an assortment of Hello Kitty knickknackery and brightly coloured plastic toys.
“The weight and structure of the pieces automatically take you to a different place,” says Australian model Alexandra Agoston, who appeared on the runway as an angel in tweed. “Your movement is dictated by the garment, making it feel like you have a new physical silhouette rather than just wearing a piece of clothing. I am always very emotional backstage at Comme des Garçons. There’s a type of creative energy that only Rei can produce.”
Those beautiful feelings were felt no more keenly than when Simon Porte Jacquemus showed a collection inspired by his memories of his mother and a photo he has of her at the port of a village outside Marseilles. He was a young boy when she passed away and his label, Jacquemus, is her (maiden) namesake. Gathered fringed skirts, sideruched cocktail dresses, and tops with softly unfolding volumes all helped to transport the audience to the sun-drenched beaches of his youth. “I’d take one of everything, right now,” muttered my neighbouring frontrow editor. “I’m going to have to rethink all my skirts. And my earrings.” It’s true: If your skirts aren’t ticking the boxes ‘tulip’, ‘cowl’, or ‘wrap’ à la Jacquemus, then I’d stick to pants. And what of those earrings? Well, make sure you’re wearing just one statement dangler or two that are totally mismatched. There’s only one rule: the bigger the better. “I mean, who would have thought that accessories could be so much fun?”
It’s a deliciously irreverent mindset that chimes with that of Dior Fine Jewellery creative director Victoire de Castellane. She has always kept a childlike sense of wonder in her work. “I prefer huge coloured stones instead of diamonds. And I like to wear big things that look fake ... like costume jewellery, but real,” she says while sporting a trunk’s worth of treasure on each hand. “Who said real jewels have to be boring?” As if to prove the point, de Castellane’s latest high jewellery collection goes to the extreme, inspired by the floral lushness of the gardens of Versailles. Her Orangerie Rubellite ring is formed of clipped emerald hedging over which spills blooms of blue, pink, and yellow sapphires, Paraiba tourmalines, and yellow diamonds. A roselike 8.44-carat rubellite is nestled at its heart. And that mismatched/single earring trend that was so prevalent at the Spring/Summer ’18 collections also makes an appearance as a pair of Plaisir Champêtre Emeraude earrings. One features an unfurling bejewelled frond from which dangles a 4.78-carat emerald; the other a cluster of flowers of yellow diamonds, blue and pink sapphires, turquoise, and lacquer. “When you are a child you are always curious and I need to be like this. For me, it is life,” de Castellane says as she twirls a satellite-dishsized Australian opal around her finger with all the mischievousness of a little girl who has just raided her mother’s jewellery box. “True luxury is when you spoil yourself. And jewellery never dies; you can pass it on to your daughter or son. It’s with you for eternity.” Of course, Alessandro Michele has made the same kind of pumped-up, Proustian romanticism (that wilfully ignores grim reality) his stock-intrade at Gucci. “It’s always said of me that I play with vintage, but it’s not [true], because the vintage I have in mind doesn’t exist,” Michele told BAZAAR. “These kinds of dreamy pieces didn’t exist in reality.” He has a point. Before Michele, where would we have gone for a star-spangled peach-and-raspberry satin all-in-one with massive sleeves? Elton John’s “Rocket Man”-era archive, perhaps? Or that purple pagodashouldered jacket and visor-eyewear combo? A Star Trek convention? “It’s as if I am a kid who is playing with a toy,” Michele continued. “I’m pretty scared about all the bad things [happening in the world]. I hope that the idea that you can lose yourself in beauty will be something that inspires all people. Beauty is in the way you live your life; it’s something that makes you feel good, something that makes you feel stronger.” History tells us that when we need something to make us feel stronger, we reach for the shiny stuff. For Joan of Arc, it was armour. For 1960s feminists, it was a Paco Rabanne chainmail minidress. For Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it was glittery red heels. Vanissa Antonious, former BAZAAR Australia staffer and co-founder of shoe label Neous, reflects: “It makes you wonder if all this world stress has inspired designers to ‘do a Dorothy’ and create the sparkly shoe trend to escape reality. There were silver twinkling Mary Janes at Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, mesh stilettos with sequinned toe-caps at Tom Ford, and red glitter mules at Victoria Beckham. Our Brassia suede mule has a ‘crystal ball’ heel made of Lucite and handcarved wood. When you hold the heel up to the light and look through it, it distorts reality.” So, the next time you need to distort the grim reality of 21st-century life, just close your eyes and tap your (sequinned/ crystal ball) heels together three times, and think to yourself, “There’s no place like home.”