I asked, you answered – in a Milan Fashion Week showdown, our sisters over on IG chose the Moschino Spring/Summer 2020 collection as the target for today’s runway critique! Versace came in at a close second; Gucci, a very distant third (although I would have loved to tear into all that terrible straight jacket imagery).
Let me tell you, I’m not sure if ANYONE realized what we were getting into with this one.
[All photos via Vogue]
On the surface, this show is simply a quirky riff on (in)famous artist Pablo Picasso’s works, with models strutting through gigantic, baroque picture frames and, in one case, wearing a picture frame. It’s bombastic, it’s silly, it’s … very Moschino. After all, Jeremy Scott did create what I consider the Greatest Dress of All Time, landing him a nod in the Met’s “Camp” exhibit.
However, we all know what happens when I begin an argument with “on the surface …”, right? It means that there is a whole iceberg under there, an iceberg-hiding-the-city-of-Atlantis, a Temple of Doom in the Amazon, an outrageously-sized can of worms, a fashion-art-politics-sociology-history-merchandising wormhole, etc, etc.
If anyone reading this is a fashion student, may I suggest using the Moschino Spring/Summer 2020 collection as a subject for a thesis? Because this thing is a goldmine.
Abolishing Perspective
I quickly realized that were I to write a piece on a collection based on Picasso, I should probably know at least the basics about his career. So I YouTubed my Favorite Art Historian Ever (other than my aunt), Sister Wendy. I wanted to know what the deal was with Picasso and the type of painting he did.
It turns out that he did many types of artwork, but since the Moschino show mostly hones in on his cubism phase, so will we. What stuck with me from Sister Wendy’s take on Picasso and cubism was that he “abolished perspective,” embracing “many angles at once.”
So it’s suiting that we, too, take this Moschino collection and hold it up at different angles, hopefully with the wisdom that holding many perspectives doesn’t mean having none at all. Our aim is to get a 3-dimensional understanding of what’s happening here. We’ll start at a surface-level and then go deep.
Ready?
First, the Fluff: 2020 Trends à la Moschino
Let’s start light with a rundown of the trends we’re seeing in this collection. My experience is that we see trends on the runway, and in several months we see them in high-end (read: ka-ching!) stores, and in several years we see some of them around town. Which ones of these do you think will stick around?
Big Sleeves
Exaggerated Shapes
Suits
Shoulder Pads
I have a lot to say about these – see this post for more info!
In-Your-Face Colors
Going Deeper: The Deal with the Moschino Brand
Creative Director Jeremy Scott is notorious for making zero distinction between “high” and “low” art, and equally infamous for his critiques on popular culture. His last collection critiqued consumer culture with his “Price is Right” theme (and accompanying TV dinner, my fave mentioned above), and previous collections commented on the pace of modern life and cell phone culture.
The biggest message across all his shows is “FASHION IS ART!” I say this in all-caps because certainly no one would ever accuse Scott’s work of using an indoor voice.
A natural extension of the “fashion is art” trope is that the runway show is performance art, which in my view, it sure is.
So if fashion is art, then the runway is an art show in addition to being performance art – and Scott has moved into that equation with the exuberance particular to the Moschino label. We have an art show that is showing riffs off of Picasso paintings in a performance art setting, if you’ll permit me the metaphor. It’s all very meta; it’s all very Scott.
The Picassos
Art scholars will be able to identify specific works in these dresses – I had to enlist the help of Google. And while I would love nothing more than to track down each look and figure out which painting or paintings influenced it, and how that informs the message of that look, as you can already see from this run-on sentence, that task would be, in short, a time-suck. So I encourage you to look through the collection at your leisure, do your own research, reach your own conclusions, and, if you’re up to it, let me know what you think.
What is useful to know is that art historians divide Picasso’s works into phases. The ones that I can identify in this collection are the rose period, which focused on itinerant circus performers as subjects; the African period (very abstract); cubism; and surrealism.
The Women: Where Things Get Messy
This is where things get really, really messy – there’s a lot of information, nuance, and perspective to juggle, which means that there’s potential for reflection, learning, and empathy. This is what art is all about, right?
Let’s start with this golden turd of a quote from Picasso himself:
“For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats.”
Riiiiight.
Looking at this from different angles (here we go again with the meta), I can hear this in different tones. Had he said this pridefully, I’d have the urge to excise the male organs associated with such bravado with a pair of craft scissors. After all, isn’t this just a different, shall we say, angle to the whole Madonna-Whore paradigm? Just another way to put you in the Virgin Mary box or the Slutty McSlutson box? Come on, man. Most of us are 25% of each and 50% big ol’ mess. Take that perspective and stuff it *steps back and watches him try to locate where to stuff it, as his cubist bender messed with his anatomy*.
Now imagine had he said this in a soft tone of sadness. Because regardless of how he meant it, it really is quite sad. A person who objectifies another rarely has the opportunity for meaningful connection. It is a very lonely thing. And this is what I see in his paintings of women. Confusion, loneliness, ugliness, utter bewilderment.
According to his granddaughter Marina, Picasso’s reliance on women – often his mistresses – as muses manifested itself as such: “[he] tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them.”
Of course, as with any person, there were notable exceptions to these problematic relationships, mainly with his daughter Maya and his friendship with Gertrude Stein. However, Picasso’s reign as Dirtbag of the Century in terms of his treatment of women is fixed in history.
Great Art Asks Questions
So here we have a cast of female models- albeit all of a similar age and body type – literally embodying the works of this man. And I’m left with a question that I truly have no answer for – is this a reclaiming of the art by the empowered women of today, or are we, by quite literally turning ourselves into art, into decorative objects, perpetuating Picasso’s misogyny?
I’m sure the answer to that question is not two-dimensional. I’m sure that it depends on perspective. I’m sure that there many answers, each of which props up and shapes how we see art, society, and humanity today. Purely based on the discussion it has ignited, I’d say that maybe the answer isn’t important. What’s important are the questions that this collection raises – how do we assert ourselves in historically-engrained misogyny? Do we take control by embodying it and changing the way it moves?
I don’t know if this is the discussion that Jeremy Scott intended, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll be damned if I let a man steer the discussion on misogyny – how rude! Haha. But at the very least, the complexity and weight of this collection’s implications suggest that Scott is indeed an artist, and a skilled one at that.
Only don’t paint us just as goddesses or doormats.
I’m interested in your thoughts! Let me know in the comments!
love,
Stig.
