Miss Nash

It is funny how things go around and around. I read an awful lot of other fashion blogs, critiques and articles, and the one message that I hear coming from all sides loud & clear is that nothing is ever new. It’s just ‘modern’ or done in a ‘new way’.
I sometimes feel like I can almost – almost – predict what I’m going to see each season. Consequently, I am so very rarely pleasantly surprised or rendered speechless by a collection. The prediction aspect of it is something instinctive – it’s a collective mood, or a mixture of different things that I’ve been absorbing through the world wide web, galleries, books, newspapers, travel, current events, whatever.

Coincidences start to happen and cross references occur and, before you know it, it’s as if Nicholas Ghesquiere, Proenza Schouler, and Alexander Wang all got together and brainstormed the shit out of American Football, then split the culmination of their efforts into 3, and went on their merry ways. The reality is that the probability of a group of like minded creative individuals getting inspired by similar ideas and therefore creating similar work is really a lot higher than one would first imagine. We’re all exposed to the same things, as well as seeking to expose ourselves to new, original, offbeat things – hunting them down like design holy grails. These off-beat people, works of art, and raw materials that normally would have stayed private, hidden or secretive are discovered and then referenced, multiplied, thrown into a collection of clothing and then shot around the web via Style.com faster than you can say ‘oh THAT old thing again?’

Of course everything you see going down a runway/catwalk each season is nothing new. By this, I mean that the basic inspiration fueling each collection is nothing new; what is (or should be) new are the ways in which these bases are ‘peppered’, presented and translated into something beautiful by the designer in question. Every repeated base should, at the very least, be a personal interpretation by one specific creative mind – despite the fact that, in order to get to the sublime end result, the designer may have stumbled through a mass of past references. There is always a new way to say something – to put a modern twist on something that ‘ain’t broke and shouldn’t be fixed’ – but as a woman of NOW I need, want, make and look for clothing & ideas that are relevant for Now. I don’t want to see the same old thing done in the same old way. Two wrongs don’t make it right. But if you tell me an old story with a new twist – i’ll  at the very least spare you the time to listen.

SO – Dior Couture.
I wont bother going through every look and dissect it to death – picking away at reference after reference – but I will say that I very much enjoyed the first half, (the stronger, more authoritative, sporting-yet-elegant looks as shown above,) and merely tolerated the second, (the frou-frou dresses and equestrian sugar plum fairy queens, see below!) And I do love to see John come out at the end and prance around in whatever male equivalent he’s thrown together for himself from the scraps left on the cutting room floor.

   Of course the riding gear idea has been saddled, shod and exercised around the arena for decades. Within just a few years, Ralph’s done it; Madonna’s done it (opening bit from Confessions tour – who doesn’t like their men fully tacked-up, complete with horsehair headdresses and down on their hands and knees?) and John’s done it on Mr Dior’s behalf – to mention but a few. Who did it best? Well, I don’t believe that you can say absolutely who did it best, because every fashion-loving individual will favour one over the other – coming at them from completely different personal viewpoints. One person’s Ralph could be another’s Dior.

   In my case, Madonna’s version is the most interesting, because she wears her clothes in a fantastical setting and incorporates them into an exciting and emotional performance – never to be worn on the street – forever to belong in this ‘other world’ that she exists in whilst on show. Her s&m riding kit for the Confessions Tour was made to look extraordinary and intoxicating, and was only made to be worn when doing things of a similar nature. I don’t want to see someone in a club wearing it, nor do I want to see another person wearing a watered-down version of it to attend a benefit luncheon. It was a fantastic exaggeration of a tried and tested idea, with a few other f*cked up things thrown into the mix for good measure – and it served its dramatic purpose very well. Leave it there – leave it on tour.
I very much like the Dior riding kit too, for similar reasons: Presented on fantastic looking people; paraded around a beautiful setting, completely in context; makeup, accessories and hair all done to enhance the overall impact of the clothes…But I almost don’t want to see these magnificent beasts being ridden in real life, through the streets. Leave them in the stables. Or put them out to pasture. But don’t rent them out to any old person who can afford them, only then to be thrashed and flogged to death whilst being run around pointless social circles. That would be a tragedy.