“Pass me that lovely little gun, my dear, my darling one,” these were the lyrics from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ ‘O Children’ that opened the show and set the tone for the entire collection.
Religion has shaped the ideal image of masculinity for centuries, and through the years, fashion has followed this shaping so that men’s clothing has, in certain eras, become more of a uniform than a personal expression of identity. This year, Ann Demeulemeester travels back in time and illustrates this pilgrimage of masculinity while calling attention to an era when men wore frocks, gowns and robes in everyday life. Rather than following the trend of making womenswear for men, she has simply rewritten history to include these pieces in a modern-day wardrobe. Her man is allowed to reach through the ethereal curtain on her runway and find inspiration in monochromatic ghosts from the past.
It’s not so much the individual pieces as it is the meaning behind them that made this collection a favorite for the season. Though the designer claims to have taken no particular religion as her inspiration for the spiritual presence in her clothes, there is a clear reference in cut, styling and music choice to sects of early protestant Christianity and Quakerism. It is in the combination of this nostalgic remembrance and the collection’s feminine undertones that clues appear pointing to the designer’s underlying message.
Friar Tuck, the town crier, the Prince and his pauper all appeared on the stage with tendrils of long hair spilling out from behind black fish-net veils of mourning. Light, flowing fabrics fluttered beneath heavy jackets exposing glimpses of what might have been hidden under a religiously bound exterior. Sullen stares from rigid models begged the audience to heed their message:
“Forgive us now for what we’ve done,
It started out as a bit of fun,
Here, take these before we run away,
The keys to the gulag”
(The Soviet Agency that ran labor camps in the Stalin era)
“O children,
Lift up your voice, lift up your voice,
Children, Rejoice, rejoice…”
Now the question remains, will we hear their cry and learn from the mistakes of the past?
“We’re all weeping now, weeping because,
There ain’t nothing we can do to protect you,
O children,
Lift up your voice, lift up your voice…”
Ford Leland
