Monster Smash
Jeremy Scott took his Moschino Resort 2020 show to Universal Studios’ famed backlot — and produced a spectacular and fun lineup that played on nearly every horror movie archetype, including skeleton tracksuits, slip dresses in jack-o’-lantern and laughing ghost prints, a corpse bride in a white tulle gown with black roses in hand, and, seen here, a screen “goddess” in King Kong’s grip.
What kept it all from being mere costume were the design details.
Universal Studios’ backlot was the site of the designer’s horror-themed resort show.
In the era of fashion- as-entertainment, it’s amazing it took this long for a designer to stage a full-fledged runway extravaganza at an actual Hollywood studio.
Jeremy Scott did just that Friday night in Los Angeles, bringing a monster of a Moschino Resort collection to the Universal Studios backlot’s eerily blissful suburban Americana stand-in for “Leave it To Beaver,” “The Munsters” and “Desperate Housewives.”
It was the culmination of a lifelong dream for the designer, who has ambitions to make a film of his own one day à la
Tom Ford, and remembered the first time he visited Universal Studios from Kansas City at age 13 in typical aw-shucks fashion: “We stayed at the Sheraton. I was with my family, and I told the other people in the hot tub I was going to be a famous star one day…I didn’t really think I was going to be a fashion star.”
The show was scripted from the moment guests entered the gate of the studio, hallowed ground for Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg — and for Hollywood’s most prolific costume designer, Edith
Head. With a short video of Scott as tour guide, guests took the backlot tour trams, rolling past sets for “Psycho” and “Jaws” and murals of classic Universal horror characters like Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Wolf Man, some of whom made cameos in real life during the theme park experience.
Guests were seated outside on the backlot’s “Colonial Street” facing manicured lawns and freshly painted houses, before the opening scene: screams, a woman running door to door for help, and the chilling Michael Meyers “Halloween” riff. Then the all-out monster mash began, with nearly every horror movie archetype represented in spectacularly spooky fashion for men and women: skeleton tracksuits, slip dresses in jack-o’-lantern and laughing ghost prints, a corpse bride in a white tulle gown with black roses in hand, a mummy in unraveling bandage print gown, a screen “goddess” in King Kong’s grip, Dracula in a silk cape and devil horn baseball cap, a scarecrow’s patchwork suit and more… and more.
The collection spanned an astounding 90 looks, which one wished one could take in under better light (who would have thought the light would be better outdoors at Thursday’s Saint Laurent Malibu beach men’s show than outdoors at a Hollywood film studio?). But there was still plenty to tickle the senses — and the hairs on the back of the neck — in this only-in-L.A. experience bringing fashion and film together, which made a strong case for bringing even more runway shows here.
Scott’s references spanned the decades, from a pair of terrifying twins out of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” to the tethered monsters from Jordan Peele’s recent hit “Us.” It was an extraordinary display of next-level showmanship and layered workmanship. Indeed, what kept it from feeling too much like a Halloween costume parade were the details: couture-like (delicate gold chain ►