Paris

Cheers to the fantasy function of our mind not to let us die from the cold reality.

I can’t attest for others but what my eyes saw was a different kind of couture from the last year’s. This was definite comeback of the elegant feminine flair, sometimes exaggerated, but in general quite wearable in fact.

This couture was feast of sequins, feathers, layers and layers of organza and tulle put together with painstakingly delicate hand-work. Colors deserve a special mention – from pastel colors of tranquility to splash of bright colors (yes, talking about Chanel and Valentino). Sincerely, I see this U-turn as a manifestation of the regenerative and compensatory function of our psyche for the latest tumultuous couple of years we’ve lived. Our longing for hope.

The Mirror of Our Times a la Couture

Well, until Maison Margiela hit the runway. Right at the U-turn are exactly two radically different tendencies (oh, that regular contradictory nature of opposites, right?) – Comeback of elegance – soberly composed yet delicately suggestive feminine flair on one side expressing cry of our soul to pull our fragmented mind together and John Galliano yet again artistically putting on runway the cold reality – our already disturbingly fragmented state of mind. He rightfully calls his work the show of the excess, the artifice, the decay. Yes, the whole show is very colorful and artisanal but clogged, just like our clogged mind and badly functioning memory. I can’t help seeing striking similarities with the works of Marta Minujin, an Argentine artist, who is famous for recreating the “mess” of our fragmented mind and clogged memory.

His previous couture horrified me a year ago, not that it was bad, just because it was like a not loved mirror that reflected the flaws one doesn’t want to see. This time around he has taken it to a whole new level – sincerely, I find it as a theater inside a fragmented mind living a trauma or I must say the concussion came with digital disruption in the era of consumerism.

Beauty Stripped Off Its Beauty

Talking about the concussion of disruption, I think we are still good. True, suddenly the fashion herd had painfully revealed that it can’t survive in its isolated glossy bubble anymore, the “ideal beauty” had a major blow while fashion turned into tool and chaotic platform of resistance against canonized societal restrictions and flaws. At another note, the silent majority got a platform to scrutinize and question the once-cherished-but–turned-to-hypocritical-cliché liberal values, which gave rise to populism leading to the most unexpected election results in certain key places.

Which naturally was followed by “high way – my way” attitude that led to borders and nations suffer from isolation and race for self-gain. Big masses simply preferred to shut doors and windows tight, burying the sense of collaboration and empathy, the greatest lessons of the devastating two world wars. We literally live memory concussion intensified by the disruption. And living with the bare reality as John Galliano has put it is really tough. It is freezing cold there.

But again, I think we are still good. Sometimes it seems to me the great world wars had somehow stemmed from the industrial revolution, the disruption of those days. Of course, the speed of time was different back then. I mean the concussion and memory clog caused by disruptions could be that bad if we choose to roll with the one-sided cold reality.

Again, back to fashion. Last year the Anglo-Saxon fashion and media played a crucial role in bringing fashion down to the terrestrial dimension where we mortals live and struggle with social issues every single day. As I said above, the “ideal-beauty” had its quite duly generous dose of scrutiny. Being well-grounded and tackling social issues through the grace of fashion is a strong weapon to readjust already canonized rules and frames.

Desire for Fantasyland

However, burning the bridge to our fantasyland, the source of our hope would backfire. We can’t uproot ourselves off. Our cold and meaningless reality is too much for us to carry. Call it hope, beauty, ideal, fantasy  – whatever label we put on – it is the source of hope. It is what gives meaning to our gray reality and reason to roll into the next day. How we have canonized this concept (hanger thin silhouette or curvy, fluffy softness) doesn’t matter. It is the compensatory function of our mind. The more we suppress it, the stronger it makes its comeback.

Last year the fashion world was swept by the cold reality of flaws and wrongs of our earthly life and viola. This year we are flooded by the products of our fantasy land to compensate the bitterness of reality – sequins, layer and layers of tulle, organza, feathers. The pieces might have been exaggerated, but they were elegantly composed and even suggestive. Even mens’ collections from the previous weeks were somehow soberly composed.

This time I saw cry of our soul for some fantasy, wishfulness. I saw our need for fairy tale that will house our unprotected soul in face of our disturbing reality. The sheer attempt of our mind to compensate for what is missing in our physical dimension.