Gucci resort 2019

 At the beginning of his fashion demolition career, it had occurred to me that he was a fool. As his trajectory continued, the clownish collections he has shown have catapulted him to this sort of iconic status via media hype and fawning bought and paid for reviews. With this current collection, my gut tells me that this is so forced, so trying to be eccentric that the engine must be losing steam. All that bullcrap blah blah blah is just that BUT then there are for the pieces … I STRESS PIECES... that are truly amazing but are out of reach for the majority of his status seeking fashion victim clientele.

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For the first time, I was able to see PIECES that could translate to sales and appeal but it is with this piling on of intentionally overly distracting and  eccentric inducing accessories, anything resembling wearable clothes is pretty well hidden. This is all about shock value for the sake of shock and awe. 

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There aren’t many collections that can be described as being an ode to Rollerina but alas here it was. Not to mention that thrift stores worldwide must be damp with excitement and the prospect of yet another banner season fueled by yet another fashion carnival.

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Pigeon toed fat ankled models don’t exactly add any mystique nor the purposely absurdly heavy lace tights worn with clumsy, dowdy or just plain odd shoes. Without a doubt, if not for accessories, the brand would be paddling water. Once upon a time, not long ago,  I recall reading how the brand wasn’t interested in pursuing logo mania but alas, I guess Michele was lost in his own world of more is better and far too self-involved to have read that missive.

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Yes, the scarf archive has been raided and clothes resemble anything from actual clown suits and kimonos to actual Halloween costumes but the important element of these collections is the HYPE, the regurgitated ramblings of this addled young man who has come to believe his own press. 

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Rather than go on let’s see how many adjectives I can find t describe this spectacle of bad taste… peculiar, nerdy, Chanel-ish, funereal, clownish, heavy handed, forced, off the charts, nerdy, repellent, masturbatory, childish, unnecessary, deliberate, overdone, chaotic, purposely outlandish and I’m guessing there must be about 20 or 30 more but I think I made my point.

Louis Vuitton resort 2019

The clothes had a cool factor that was vintage Ghesquière: a little bit cult-y, a lotta bit ’80s, with a soupçon of executive realness, and, for good measure, some beaded silk lingerie bits and hand-painted acid-washed denim.

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Imagine that in the same review excepted above that the word eccentric was used……………. the reviewer is obviously either a master of understatement or just a complete fool… personally I’d go with fool! In that same piece of paid for tripe the review speaks to the ”house codes” (of which there are none) and how the intergalactic over knee athletic intergalactic flat soled boot will be a slam dunk  hit for the brand at retail …. I guess EMS will be working overtime scraping up women from the pavement who are as unable to walk in them as were the models.

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What I see here are clothes ... just clothes for the sake of clothes. Clothes that are overworked, over designed to be intentionally odd, often heavy handed and on the whole pretty unwearable except for the Asian and Middle East clientele who buy a label rather than fashion. What astounds me more is that last season, one had the notion that Ghesquière was going to move away from fashion freakdom and move towards collections that had a broader appeal, even if just to a minority of the 3% who might be able to afford this “stuff.”

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What cannot and will not be ignored is that apparel is but a speck of dandruff on the suit of Arnault. Vuitton is a money machine, a cash   cow and a heritage brand that might only be rivaled by Dior. Sadly when it comes to clothes, both brands offer little to people who want to look chic or well-groomed but they sell a shitload of ancillary products. Rather than the”classy” option these are the clothes aimed to appeal to a generation of musicians who make noise rather than music and for some whose bust size is larger than their IQ

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Kudos to Nicholas, you have the best job in the world… you get to just make silly clothes at extraordinary prices; the clothes barely register a blip in the big “monde:” of Louis Vuitton. You are there to provide HYPE and nothing else. Money and hype can be incredible intoxicants and aphrodisiacs for a designer who has no restraints.

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PS…. Buried within this cacophony of clothes there were actually a few pieces that will have some appeal to those who would want to look tasteful or own a piece of extreme workmanship but you will need a scalpel to dissect this collection in order to find them.

Dior resort 2019

The esoteric equestrian theme for Dior resort 2019 is based on the escaranuza … the female riders that compete in Mexico’s version of a rodeo. The escaranuza riders also only wear garments of cotton or linen; simple, hard-wearing fabrics gussied up with fabulous embroideries and silver objects. Doesn’t it all sound so Dior ... so chic, so imaginative, and so pregnant with possibility, so well researched yeah .... well, guess what? .. In the hands of Mamamiameatball you get just one more ho-hum folly to add to the growing list of debacles that the brand has produced under her tutelage. 

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The clothes are either pedestrian, yawn worthy, J Crew-ish, more Valentino than Dior and pretty much just without purpose. Look on the bright side … Melania has finally found a collection satisfies her belt fetish with ones that start right under her boobs and extend up to about 6 inches in width covering the lower section of her rib cage, provided she still has those ribs. Then of course, there were the leather breast plates, her de rigeur transparency (nipples) and mukluks or rubber stable/paddock boots to polish off this extremely chic and sophisticated look ….. NOT!

  

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She has suddenly been taken with the Bar jacket or some watered down version of  that and seems to think  it is the perfect mate with everything  from shorts to khaki to tulle  but that is  her  demented idea of how one combs one of the richest fashion archives and retains the DNA of the brand. 

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Let’s return to the theme which upon researching one finds that these women generally wear sombreros; so one might imagine the possible  fabulousity that might have happened with that notion but la meatball turned sombrero into fedora ... makes sense yes? ..  Not to mention the somber color palette which surely looked drab and dull?   

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Then once again,  the models are made up to look as if they are not made up at all which suddenly might cast this sort of Sapphic aura over the collection, certainly some of these clothes would be much more appealing had they been shown as elegant and refined which is certainly more in keeping with the reputation of the brand  but  now  we have to make a statement about  empowering women AGAIN which at this point has become quite tired at best, if not overstated by now, hence no heels nor feminine footwear…. Each season we seem to get a new version of Dior Doc Martens.  To her credit though there were no tee shorts with words or phrases on them but I wouldn’t give that long before they return.
Olé might have been perfect or Olé Dior!!

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My mind wanders when Dior uses toile in this collection the pieces look as if they came from a bedspread and then I think of toile at Oscar de la Renta and toile was superbly elegant and feminine. Something is horribly askew with la mama and the heavy handedness she has brought to Dior. There is no point in my beating this dead horse as it died seasons ago soon after her appointment. 

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Saying that the brand has been tarnished is akin to saying that Maria Callas could carry a tune! Nuff said