A look at the past, present, and future of dystopian fashion.
“Apocalypse Wow” was the headline WWD chose for Karl Lagerfeld’s cinematic fall 2011 show for Chanel, the models emerging from glowing white cubes and traversing a wooden boardwalk flanked by smouldering rocks. They wore boiler suits, sturdy boots and roomy jackets and pants, mostly in black or ashen colors.It was an uncharacteristically somber effort by a designer better known for his ebullience — and it proved eerily prescient.
“No future” sentiments were part and parcel of the punk movement of the Seventies, and dystopian styles surfaced on many runways in the late Nineties “when it signified all of the anxieties of a generation entering a new millennium,” she continued. “Dark themes appear to have endured so I would expect them to come around again and again to reflect new fears and anxieties.
“Walter Van Beirendonck’s ‘Aesthetic Terrorists’ and the label Vexed Generation as well as the dark insurgent militarism of the Maharishi label were all indicative of a new fusion of high fashion, cyber culture and streetwear that anticipated conflict, homelessness and even the threat of annihilation,” according to Tynan, recalling that Vexed Generation was conceived as a fashion riposte to widespread use of surveillance cameras in Britain — protest via face-obscuring garments like parkas with...
Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves in a still from movie “The Matrix” . Warner Bros/Village Roadshow Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock McDougall first cottoned on to the look in the early Eighties, and never strayed. “My starting point of interest was the black based, post-apocalyptic fashion coming out of Japan then, particularly from Rei Kawakubo,” he said. “I have done what I do for 31 years. There is always a client for it — sometimes more, sometimes less.
To be sure, dystopian themes can manifest themselves in myriad ways: consider the safety blankets, quilts and dingy firefighter coats Raf Simons proposed during his Calvin Klein days, or the prim monochromatic dresses and cloaks in “The Handsmaid’s Tale,” or the colorful, circus-like pageantry of the elite in “The Hunger Games.”
For the most part, retailers and historians agreed that men’s fashion has enjoyed a longer, deeper dalliance with doomsday chic.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Meet the Fashion Brands Giving Old Fabrics New Life Through UpcyclingAs we celebrate Earth Day, meet the fashion brands around the world making old things new again by upcycling everything from sequins to sneakers.
Read more »
Listen to Iggy Pop's Lost Cover of Sly and the Family Stone's 'Family Affair'“There’s a lot of truth in it,” Pop said, “especially in the second verse, about all sorts of questions that are coming around again now”
Read more »
This Grandma-Approved Fashion Trend Is Finally Popular AgainYour grandma may have worn this trend years ago and we're so happy to say it. is. BACK.
Read more »
London Fashion Week Is Going All DigitalThe British Fashion Council announced that London Fashion Week will go on as originally scheduled in June, but with a digital twist, relaunching entirely online.
Read more »
The Fashion Industry Turns to Making Face MasksWhile the fashion industry is struggling, coronavirus-related demand has enabled many fashion labels to reopen their factories to make millions of face masks See how some fashion houses are taking charge:
Read more »
British Fashion Council Merges Men’s, Women’s ShowcasesLondon Fashion Week: Men’s is no more and London Fashion Week is re-branding into a single, “gender-neutral” showcase.
Read more »