As Fashion Week in Paris drew to a close along with this spring fashion season, the reinvention and reawakening of several major fashion players was very much the talk of the town. But it was the appearance of two purely fictional fashion icons that truly stole the show.
The Zoolander cameo at the Valentino show prompted the biggest furore. The film and fashion worlds collided as fantasy fashion icons, Derek Zoolander and Hansel, appeared in its Womenswear Spring/Summer 2016 catwalk finale.
Was this a mere publicity stunt, or was it an ironic fashion statement?
Whatever it was, the robotic—and seemingly never-ending parades of po-faced androgyne models that have graced the runways of the four major fashion capitals over the past month—melted away as the industry appeared, even if only for a moment, to crack a smile and lighten up.
The response on social media was instantaneous, with messages and clips from the show broadcast globally across all the major channels.
Not since Robert Altman’s famous fashion film flop Prêt-à-Porter in 1994, in which a whole gaggle of famous fashion faces overacting alongside Hollywood’s finest, have we seen fictitious fashion personae melded together with the real-life fashion world.
The September Issue (2009), is perhaps the film that best echoes the atmosphere in fashion over the last two decades. The documentary, which followed Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, painted a serious and dedicated portrait of an industry which is influential and powerful in equal measure.
But today, Prada-clad “Devils” aside, the industry seems to be approaching some kind of creative and transformative epiphany. There has been an explosion of newer, leaner brooms sweeping the ateliers of the major fashion houses and letting some light and air back in.
“Super brands,” such as Valentino, Gucci, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent are being transformed beyond recognition by a hungry, innovative and much younger stable of creative talent.
Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent created shockwaves that were felt throughout the industry by daring to change the very name of the iconic house back to Saint Laurent Paris, removing the persona of Yves himself and repositioning the house as a brand.
